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VARIOUS FRAGMENTS 



VARIOUS FRAGMENTS 



BY 



HERBERT SPENCER 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1898 



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Copyright, 1897, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANT. 



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TUB UBEAET 

or CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



PREFACE. 



Several of the following fragments contain ideas and 
suggestions which ought not, I think, to remain buried, 
and practically lost, in their original places of publi- 
cation. Preservation may, I think, prove to be of some 
importance. As for the rest, I do not know that they 
are all intrinsically of such value as to be worthy of a 
permanent form. But it has seemed that along with 
republication of the fragments of chief significance, 
there might fitly go a republication of those of less sig- 
nificance, which would not have been worth republish- 
ing by themselves. 

H. S. 

July, 1897. 



CONTENTS 



PAGB 

The bookselling-question 1 

an element in method 3 

Professor Cairnes's criticisms 15 

Views concerning copyright 19 

A rejoinder to Mr. McLennan 70 

Prof. Tait on the formula of evolution .... 82 

Ability versus information 99 

Book-distribution 101 

M. DE Laveleye's error 107 

Government by minority 120 

Evolutionary ethics 121 

Social evolution and social duty 130 

Parliamentary Georgites 134 

A record of legislation 136 

Anglo-American arbitration 140 

Against the metric system 142 

The " net-price " system of bookselling 171 

Appendices 197 

vii 



THE BOOKSELLIITG-QUESTIOlSr. 

In April 1852 was published in the Westminster 
Review, an essay on " The Commerce of Literature," 
written by lir. (afterwards Dr.) Chapman, then a pub- 
lisher and the owner of the review. The picture which 
it drew of the trade-regulations and their results, initi- 
ated an agitation among authors, in which I took part, 
and in furtherance of it published the following letter 
in The Times for April 5, 1852. This letter, signed 
" An Author," I reproduce partly because it shows the 
condition of the book-trade in the middle of the century, 
and partly because it bears significantly on a current 
question — namely whether the system then in force shall 
be re-established. 

Somewhat more than a year since I published a work 
of which the advertised price is 12s. I have now before 
me an account up to Christmas last, wherein I find my- 
self credited with the copies sold at the rate of 8s. 6d. 
each. The trade custom of giving 25 for the price of 24 
reduces this to somewhat less that 8s. 2d. Further, my 
publisher deducts 10 per cent, commission for all sales 
he makes in my behalf; so that ultimately the net sum 
per copy payable to me becomes 7s. 4d. Out of this 

1 



2 THE BOOKSELLING-QUESTION. 

7s. 4d. per copy I have to pay for the composition, print- 
ing, paper, and binding; for the advertising, which 
threatens to reach 50Z.; and for the 30 odd copies sent 
to the national libraries, newspapers, and reviews. The 
result is that, though of its kind the book has been a 
very successful one, my account up to Christmas last 
shows a balance of 80L against me. Possibly in 18 
months hence the work will have paid its expenses, and I 
am even not without hope that it will leave me some 
101. in pocket as a reward for my two years' toil. Should 
it do so, however, I shall be unusually fortunate ; for my 
publisher tells me that the great majority of works hav- 
ing, like mine, a philosophical character, entail loss. 

ISTow, with all their skill in mystification,, the Book- 
sellers' Association will find it difiicult to show that out 
of a selling price of 12s. the proportion set aside to pay 
for printing, paper, binding, advertising, gratuitous 
copies, and author, should be 7s. 4d., while 4s. 8d. may 
reasonably be charged for conveyance to the reader. In 
these days of cheap carriage 60 per cent, for cost of pro- 
duction, and 40 per cent, for porterage, is a somewhat 
anomalous division. 

Mr. Murray says it is in great measure an author's 
question. He is right, and authors will prove much less 
intelligent than I take them to be if they do not see how 
immensely their own interests, as well as those of the 
public, would be served by a diminution of these ex- 
orbitant trade profits. Let any one refer to Porter'' s 
Progress of the Nation, and there note the many cases in 
which a small reduction of price has been followed by a 
great increase of consumption, and he cannot avoid the 
inference that a 20 per cent, decrease in the vendor's 
charge for a book would cause a much more than pro- 



AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 3 

portionate increase in its sale ; and as this decrease wonld 
be in the cost of agency, and not in the author's price, the 
extra sale would be so much clear profit to him. Books 
that now entail loss would pay their expenses, and books 
that now only pay their expenses would bring something 
like a reasonable remuneration. 

Should the publishers and booksellers persist in their 
restrictive policy, which is injurious not only to authors 
and the public, but, I believe, in the long run even to 
themselves, I think that as a matter of business authors 
will be justified in declining to publish with any who 
belong to the combination. 

The movement initiated, as above said, by Mr. Chap- 
man's article, resulted in an agreement to arbitrate be- 
tween the authors and the traders. The arbitrators ap- 
pointed were Lord Campbell, Mr. Grote, and Dean 
Milman. They gave their decision in favour of the 
authors, and the trade-regulations which enforced the 
system of " net prices " were at once abolished. 



A^ ELEMEXT IN METHOD. 

The fragment which here follows was originally the 
introductory chapter to Part III of The Prmciples of 
Psychology (first edition 1855). When preparing a sec- 
ond and enlarged edition of the work in 1868 — TO, I 
omitted it as not being relevant to Psychology in par- 
ticular but as being relevant rather to science in general; 



4 AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 

and I then entertained the thought of making it part of 
an essay " On Method " to be prefixed to First Princi- 
ples. Pre-occupation prevented me from carrying out 
that intention and ill-health now obliges me to abandon 
it. But the thought which this fragment embodies has, 
I think, a degree of importance which makes preserva- 
tion desirable; and I therefore decide to include it in 
this volume. 

It is a dominant characteristic of Intelligence, viewed 
in its successive stages of ^evolution, that its processes, 
which, as originally performed, were not accompanied 
with a consciousness of the manner in which they were 
performed, or of their adaptation to the ends achieved, 
become eventually both conscious and systematic. Xot 
simply is this seen on comparing the actions popularly 
distinguished as instinctive and rational; but it is seen 
on comparing the successive phases of rationality itself. 
Thus, children reason, but do not know it. Youths know 
empirically what reason is, and when they are reasoning. 
Cultivated adults reason intentionally, with a view to 
certain results. The more advanced of such presently 
inquire after what manner they reason. And finally, a 
few reach a state in which they consciously conform their 
reasonings to those logical principles which analysis dis- 
closes. To exhibit this law of mental progress clearly, 
and to show the extent of its application, some illustra- 
tions must be cited. 

Classification supplies us with one. All intelligent 
action presupposes a grouping together of things pos- 
sessing like properties. To know what is eatable and 
ivhat not; which creatures to pursue and which to fly: 



AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 5 

what materials are fit for these purposes and what for 
those; alike imply the arrangement of objects into classes 
of such nature that, from certain sensible characteristics 
of each, certain other characteristics are foreseen. It is 
manifest that throughout all life, brute and human, more 
or less of this discrimination is exercised ; that it is more 
exercised by higher creatures than by lower; and that 
successful action is in part dependent on the extent to 
which it is pushed. ITow it needs but to open a work on 
Chemistry, Mineralogy, Botany, or Zoology, to see how 
this classification which the child, the savage, and the 
peasant, carry on spontaneously, and without thinking 
what they are doing, is carried on by men of science sys- 
tematically, knowingly, and with deliberate purpose. It 
needs but to watch their respective proceedings, to see 
that the degrees of likeness and unlikeness, which uncon- 
sciously guide the ignorant in forming classes and sub- 
classes, are consciously used by the cultured to the same 
end. And it needs but to contrast the less advanced men 
of science with the more advanced, to see that this process 
of making groups, which the first pursue with but little 
perception of its ultimate use, is pursued by the last with 
clear ideas of its value as a means of achieving higher 
objects. 

So too is it with nomenclatures. Few will hesitate to 
admit that in the first stages of language, things were 
named incidentally — not from a recognition of the value 
of names as facilitating communication; but under the 
pressure of particular ideas which it was desired to con- 
vey. The poverty of aboriginal tongues, which contain 
words only for the commonest and most conspicuous 
objects, serves of itself to show, that systems of verbal 
signs were, in the beginning, unconsciously extended as 



6 AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 

far only as necessity impelled. Now, however, nomen- 
clatures are made intentionally. A new star, a new 
island, a new mineral, a new plant or animal, are sever- 
ally named by their discoverers as soon as found; and 
are so named with more or less comprehension of the 
purpose which names subserve. Moreover it may be 
remarked that whereas, in the primitive unconscious 
process of naming, the symbols employed were, as 
far as might be, descriptive of the things signified; so, 
in our artificial systems of names — and especially in 
our chemical one — a descriptive character has been 
designedly given. Add to which, that whereas there 
spontaneously grew up in natural nomenclatures, cer- 
tain habitual ways of combining and inflecting names 
to indicate composite and modified objects; so, in 
the nomenclatures of science, systematic modes of 
forming compound names have been consciously 
adopted. 

Again, a similar progress may be traced in the mak- 
ing of inductions. As is now commonly acknowledged, 
all general truths are either immediately or mediately 
inductive — are either themselves derived from aggrega- 
tions of observed facts, or are deduced from truths that 
are so derived. The grouping together of the like co- 
existences and sequences presented by experience, and 
the formation of a belief that future coexistences and se- 
quences will resemble past ones, is the common type of 
all initial inferences, whether they be those of the infant 
or the philosopher. Up to the time of the Greeks, man- 
kind had pursued this process of forming conclusions, 
unknowingly, as the mass of them pursue it still. Aris- 
totle recognized the fact that certain classes of conclu- 
sions were thus formed; and to some extent taught the 



AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 7 

necessity of so forming them. But it was not until Bacon 
lived, that the generalization of experiences was erected 
into a method. Now, however, that all educated men are 
in a sense Bacon's disciples, we may daily see followed 
out systematically, and with design, in the investigations 
of science, those same mental operations which mankind 
at large have all along unwittingly gone through, in 
gaining their commonest knowledge of surrounding 
things. And further, in the valuable " System of Logic " 
of John Mill, we have now exhibited to us in an organ- 
ized form, those more complex intellectual procedures 
which acute thinkers have ever employed, to some ex- 
tent, in verifying the aboriginal inductive process — pro- 
cedures which the most advanced inquirers are now be- 
ginning to employ with premeditation, and with a recog- 
nition of their nature and their purpose. 

Another illustration may be drawn from the first part 
of this work. On reconsidering the chapter treating of 
the Universal Postulate, it will be seen that the canon of 
belief there enunciated as the one to be used in testing 
every premiss, every step in an argument, every conclu- 
sion, is one which men have from the beginning used to 
these ends; that beliefs which are proved by the incon- 
ceivableness of their negations to invariably exist, men 
have, of necessity, always held to be true, though they 
have not knowingly done this ; and that the step remain- 
ing to be taken, was simply to apply this test consciously 
and systematically. It will also be seen that the like may 
be said of the second canon of belief contained in that 
chapter; viz. that the certainty of any conclusion is 
great, in proportion as the assumptions of the Universal 
Postulate made in reaching it are few. For as was 
pointed out people in general habitually show but little 



8 AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 

confidence in results reached by elaborate calculations, 
or by long chains of reasoning; whilst thej habitually 
show the greatest confidence in results reached by direct 
perception; and these contrasted classes of results are 
those which respectively presuppose very many and very 
few assumptions of the Universal Postulate. In this case 
therefore, as in the other, the rational criterion is simply 
the popular criterion analyzed, systematized, and applied 
with premeditation. 

In further exemplification of this law I might en- 
large upon the fact, that having found habit to generate 
facility, we intentionally habituate ourselves to those 
acts in which facility is desired ; upon the fact, that hav- 
ing seen how the mind masters its problems by proceed- 
ing from the simple to the complex, we now consciously 
pursue our scientific inquiries in the same order; upon 
the fact, that having, in our social operations, spontane- 
ously fallen into division of labour, we now, in any new 
undertaking, introduce division of labour intentionally. 
But without multiplying illustrations, it will by this time 
be sufficiently clear, that, as above said, not only be- 
tween the so-called instinctive processes and rational 
ones, is there a difference in respect of the consciousness 
with which they are performed, but there are analogous 
differences between the successive gradations of ration- 
ality itself. 

Are we not here then, led to a general doctrine of 
methods? In each of the cases cited, we see an arranged 
course of action deliberately pursued with a view to spe- 
cial ends — a method ; and on inquiring how one of these 
methods differs from any conscious intelligent procedure 
not dignified by the title, we find that it differs only in 
length and complication. [N'eglecting this distinction as 



AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 9 

a merely conventional one — ceasing to regard methods 
objectively, as written down in books, and regarding 
them subjectively, as elaborate modes of operation by 
wbicb the mind reaches certain results — we shall see, 
that they may properly be considered as the highest self- 
conscious manifestations of the rational faculty. And if, 
viewed analytically, all methods are simply complex in- 
tellectual processes, standing towards conscious reasoning 
much as conscious reasoning stands towards unconscious 
reasoning, and as unconscious reasoning stands towards 
processes lower in the scale — if further, in the several in- 
stances above given, methods arose by the systematiza- 
tion and deliberate carrying out of mental operations 
which were before irregularly and unwittingly pursued 
— may we not fairly infer that all methods arise after 
this manner? That they become methods, when the 
processes they embody have been so frequently repeated 
as to assume an organized form? And that it is the fre- 
quent repetition, which serves alike to give them definite- 
ness, and to attract consciousness to them as processes by 
which certain ends have been achieved. Is it not indeed 
obvious, a priori, that no method can be practicable to 
the intellect save one which harmonizes with its pre- 
established modes of action? Is it not obvious that the 
conception of a method by its promulgator implies in the 
experiences of his own mind, cases in which he has suc- 
cessfully followed such method? Is it not obvious that 
the advance he makes, consists in observing the processes 
through which his mind passed on those occasions, and 
generalizing and arranging them into a system? And is 
it not then obvious that, both in respect of origin and 
applicability, no method is possible but such as consists 
of an orderly and habitual use of the procedures which 



10 AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 

the intellect spontaneously pursues, but pursues fitfully, 
incompletely, and unconsciously? The answers can 
scarcely be doubtful. 

By thus carrying consciousness a stage higher, and 
recognizing the method by which methods are evolved, 
we may perhaps see our way to further devices in aid of 
scientific inquiry. As in the case of deductive logic, and 
classification, and nomenclature, and induction, and the 
rest, it happened that by becoming conscious of the mode 
in which the mind wrought in these directions, men were 
enabled to organize its workings, and consequently to 
reach results previously unattainable; so, it is possible 
that by becoming conscious of the method by which 
methods are formed, we may be assisted in our search 
after further methods. If in the instances given, the 
method of forming methods was that of observing the 
operations by which from time to time the mind spon- 
taneously achieved its ends, and arranging these into a 
general scheme of action to be constantly followed in 
analogous cases; then, in whatever directions our modes 
of inquiry are at present unmethodized, our policy must 
be to trace the steps by which success is occasionally 
achieved in these directions; in the hope that by so 
doing, we may be enabled to frame systems of procedure 
which shall render future successes more or less sure. 
That there is scope for this cannot be doubted. On re- 
membering how much, even of the best thinking, is done 
in an irregular way; how little of the whole chain of 
thought by which a discovery is made, is included in the 
bare logical processes; and how unorganized is the part 
not so included; it will be manifest that there are intel- 
lectual operations still remaining to be methodized. And 
here may fitly be introduced an example, to which, in 



AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. H 

fact, the foregoing considerations are in a manner intro- 
ductory. 

Every generalization is at first an hypothesis. In 
seeking out the law of any class of phenomena, it is need- 
ful to make assumptions respecting it, and then to gather 
evidence to prove the truth or untruth of the assump- 
tions. The most rigorous adherent of the inductive 
method, cannot dispense with such assumptions; seeing 
that without them, he can neither know what facts to 
look for, nor how to interrogate such facts as he may 
have. Hypotheses, then, being the indispensable step- 
ping-stones to generalizations — every generalization hav- 
ing to pass through the hypothetic stage — it becomes 
a question w^hether there exists any mode of guiding our- 
selves towards true hypotheses. At present, hypotheses 
are chosen unsystematically — are suggested by cursory 
inspections of the phenomena; and the seizing of right 
ones, seems, in the great majority of cases, a matter of 
accident. May we not infer however, from the peculiar 
skill which some men have displayed in the selection of 
true hypotheses, that there is a special kind of intellec- 
tual action by which they are distinguishable. To call 
the faculty shown by such men, genius, or intuition, is 
merely to elude the question. If mental phenomena con- 
form to fixed laws, then, an unusual skill in choosing true 
hypotheses, means nothing else than an unusual tendency 
to pursue that mental process by which true hypotheses 
are reached; and this implies that such a process exists. 

To identify this process is the problem: to find how, 
when seeking the law of any group of phenomena, we 
may make a probable assumption respecting them — how 
we may guide ourselves to a point of view from which 
the facts to be generalized can be seen in their funda- 



12 AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 

mental relations. Evidently, as tlie thing wanted is al- 
ways an unknown thing, the only possible guidance must 
be that arising from a foreknowledge of whereabouts it 
is to be found, or of its general aspect, or of both. If all 
true generalizations (excluding the merely empirical 
ones) should possess a peculiarity in common; and this 
peculiarity should be one not difficult of recognition; the 
desired guidance may be had. That such a peculiarity 
exists, will by this time have been inferred; and it now 
remains to inquire what it is. 

Most are familiar with the observation, that viewed 
in one of its chief aspects, scientific progress is constantly 
towards larger and larger generalizations — towards gen- 
eralizations, that is, which include the generalizations 
previously established. Further, the remark has been 
made, that every true generalization commonly affords 
an explanation of some other series of facts than the 
series out of the investigation of which it originated. In 
both of which propositions we have partial statements of 
the truth, that each onward step in science is achieved 
when a group of phenomena to be generalized is brought 
under the same generalization with some connate group 
previously considered separate. Let us look at a few 
cases. 

In the Calculus it was thus, when the relationships 
of extension, linear, superficial, and solid, were found to 
conform to the same law with those of numbers that are 
multiplied into each other; and again, when numbers 
themselves, whether representing spaces, forces, times, 
objects, or what not, were found to possess certain gen- 
eral properties, capable of being expressed algebraically, 
which remain the same whatever the magnitudes of the 
numbers. In Mechanics it was thus, when a formula 



I 



AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 13 

was discovered wliicli brought the equilibrmm of the 
scales, under the same generalization with the equi- 
librium of the lever with unequal arms : and again, when 
the discovery that fluids press equally in all directions, 
afforded explanations, alike of their uniform tendency 
towards horizontality, and of their power to support float- 
ing bodies. Thus too was it in Astronomy, when the 
apparently erratic movements of the planets, and the 
comparatively regular movement of the moon, were ex- 
plained as both due to similar revolutions ; and wh^n the 
celestial motions, and the falling of rain-drops, were ex- 
plained as different manifestations of the same force. 
It was thus in Optics, when the composite nature of light 
was discovered to be the passive cause of the prismatic 
spectrum, of the rainbow, and of the colours of objects; 
in Thermotics, when the expansion of mercury, the ris- 
ing of smoke, and the boiling of water, were recognized 
as different manifestations of the same law of expansion 
by heat; in Acoustics, when the doctrine of undulations 
was found to apply equally to the phenomena of har- 
monies, of discords, of pulses, of sympathetic vibrations. 
Similarly, it was thus in Chemistry, when the burning 
of coal, the rusting of iron, and the wasting away of 
starved animals, were generalized as instances of oxida- 
tion. It was thus, too, when the electro-positive and 
electro-negative relations of the elements, were brought 
in elucidation of their chemical affinities. And once 
more it was thus, when, by the investigations of Oersted 
and Ampere, the phenomena of Electricity and Mag- 
netism were reduced to the same category; and the be- 
haviour of the magnetic needle was assimilated to that 
of a needle subjected to the influence of artificial elec- 
tric currents. 



14 AN ELEMENT IN METHOD. 

'Now this circumstance, that a true generalization 
usually brings within one formula groups of phenomena 
which at first sight seem unallied, is itself a more or 
less reliable index of the truth of a generalization. For 
manifestly, to have found for any series of facts, a law 
which equally applies to some apparently distinct series, 
implies that we have laid hold of a truth more general 
than the truths presented by either series regarded sepa- 
rately — more general than the truths which give the 
special character to either series. If, in the instances 
above cited, and in hosts of others, we find that the 
most general fact displayed by any class of phenomena, 
is also the most general fact displayed by another class, 
or by several other classes; then, we may conversely 
infer, on finding a general fact to be true of several 
cases in each of two separate classes, that there is consid- 
erable probability of its being true of all the cases in 
each class. Or, to exhibit the proposition in another 
form: — A peculiarity observed to be common to cases 
that are widely distinct, is more likely to be a funda- 
mental peculiarity, than one which is observed to be 
common to cases that are nearly related. 

Hence, then, is deducible a method of guiding our- 
selves towards true hypotheses. For if a characteristic 
seen equally in instances usually placed in different 
categories, is more likely to be a general characteristic 
than one seen equally in instances belonging to the same 
category; then, it is obviously our policy, when seeking 
the most general characteristic of any category, not to 
compare the instances contained in it with each other, 
but to compare them with instances contained in some 
allied category. We must seek out all the categories 
with which alliance is probable; compare some of the 



PROFESSOR CAIRNES'S CRITICISMS. 15 

phenomena included in each with some of the phenom- 
ena under investigation; ascertain by each comparison 
what there is common to both kinds; and then, if there 
be any characteristic common to both, inquire whether 
it is common to all the phenomena we are aiming to 
generalize : in doing which we may with advantage still 
act out the same principle, by comparing first the cases 
that are most strongly contrasted. The adoption of this 
course secures two advantages. ITot only must any pe- 
culiarity which may be hit upon, as common to phe- 
nomena of separate classes, have a greater probability of 
being a generic peculiarity, than any one of the many 
peculiarities possessed in common by phenomena of the 
same classes; but further, we shall be more likely to ob- 
serve all that there is in common between diverse phe- 
nomena placed side by side, than we shall to observe all 
that there is in common between phenomena so much 
alike as to be classed together. Fewer hypotheses are 
possible; all that are possible are likely to be thought 
of; and of those thought of, each has a much higher 
chance of being true. 



PEOFESSOK CAIEI^ES'S CKITICISMS. 

Prof. Cairnes having, in The Fortnightly Review 
for January and February 1875, criticized my views 
concerning social evolution and its relations to individ- 
ual volitions and activities, I published in the February 
number the following reply, which, by the Editor's 
courtesy, I was allowed to append to Prof. Cairnes's con- 



16 PROFESSOR CAIRNES'S CRITICISMS. 

eluding article. The prevalence of the error into which 
Prof. Cairnes fell, makes desirable the reproduction of 
this explanation excluding it. 

Were it possible to expound clearly, in one small 
volume, a doctrine which three large volumes are to be 
occupied in expounding, it would be needless to write 
the three large volumes. Further, in a work on the 
study of a science devoted to the discussion of diffi- 
culties and preparations, and referring to its facts 
and inferences mainly in elucidation of the study, 
it is hardly to be expected that the principles of the 
science can be set forth with the exactness and the 
qualifications proper to a work on the science itself; 
indications and outline statements only are to be 
looked for. 

I say this by way of implying that the objections 
raised by Prof. Cairnes to views incidentally sketched 
in the Study of Sociology, will be adequately met by the 
full exposition which the Principles of Sociology is to 
contain. This exposition will, I believe, satisfy Prof. 
Cairnes that he does not quite rightly apprehend the 
general doctrine of evolution, and the doctrine of social 
evolution forming part of it. Por example, so far is it 
from being true, as he supposes, that the existence of 
stationary societies is at variance with the doctrine, it is, 
contrariwise, a part of the doctrine that a stationary 
state, earlier or later reached, is one towards which all 
evolutional changes, social or other, inevitably lead. 
(See First Principles, chap. XXH, " Equilibration.") 
And again, so far is it from being true that the slow 
social decays which in some cases take place, and the dis- 
solutions which take place in others, are incongruous 



PEOFESSOJR CAIRNES'S CRITICISMS. 17 

with tlie doctrine, it is, contrariwise, a part of it that 
decays and dissolutions must come in all cases. (See 
First Principles, chap. XXIII, " Dissolution.") 

Leaving the rest of Prof. Cairnes's objections to be 
answered by implication in the volumes which I hope 
in time to complete, I will here say no more than may 
suffice to remove the impression that I advocate passivity 
in public affairs. From the principles laid down, he con- 
siders me bound to accept the absurd corollary that 
political organization is superfluous. To recall his illus- 
tration of insurance against fire, he argues that since 
loss by fire is not diminished by insurance companies, 
but only re-distributed, I must, in pursuance of my ar- 
gument, hold that insurance companies are useless ! The 
passage which Prof. Cairnes quotes is directed against 
" the current illusion that social evils admit of radical 
cures," in immediate ways; and insists " that the ques- 
tion, in any case is whether re-distribution, even if prac- 
ticable, is desirable: " the obvious implication being that 
some re-distributions are desirable and some not. 

I am chiefly concerned, however, to repudiate the 
conclusion that " the private action of citizens " is need- 
less or unimportant, because the course of social evolu- 
tion is determined by the natures of citizens, as working 
under the conditions in which they are placed. To assert 
that each social change is thus determined, is to assert 
that all the egoistic and altruistic activities of citizens 
are factors of the change ; and is tacitly to assert that in 
the absence of any of these — say political aspirations, 
or the promptings of philanthropy — the change will not 
be the same. So far from implying that the efforts of 
each man to achieve that which he thinks best, are un- 
important, the doctrine implies that such efforts, sever- 



18 PROFESSOR CAIRNES'S CRITICISMS. 

ally resulting from the natures of tlie individuals, are 
indispensable forces. The correlative duty is thus em- 
phasized in § 34 of First Principles: — 

" It is not for nothing that he has in him these sym- 
pathies with some principles and repugnance to others. 
He, with all his capacities, and aspirations, and beliefs, 
is not an accident, but a product of the time. He must 
remember that while he is a descendant of the past, 
he is a parent of the future; and that his thoughts 
are as children born to him, which he may not care- 
lessly let die. He, like every other man,' may prop- 
erly consider himself as one of the myriad agencies 
through whom works the Unknown Cause; and when 
the Unknown Cause produces in him a certain be- 
lief, he is thereby authorized to profess and act out 
that belief. For, to render in their highest sense the 
words of the poet, — 

" ^. . . ^Nature is made better by no mean. 
But nature makes that mean: over that art 
Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
That nature makes.' " 

That there is no retreating from this view in the 
work Prof. Cairnes criticizes, is sufficiently shown by 
its closing paragraph : — 

" Thus, admitting that for the fanatic some wild an- 
ticipation is needful as a stimulus, and recognizing the 
usefulness of his delusion as adapted to his particular 
nature and his particular function, the man of higher 
type must be content with greatly-moderated expecta- 
tions, while he perseveres with undiminished efforts. 
He has to see how comparatively little can be done, and 
yet to find it worth while to do that little: so uniting 
philanthropic energy with philosophic calm." 

I do not see how Prof. Cairnes reconciles with such 
passages, his statement that " according to Mr. Spencer, 



VIEWS COXCERNING COPYRIGHT. 19 

the future of the liuman race may be safely trusted to 
the action of motives of a private and personal kind — 
to motives such as operate in the production and distri- 
bution of wealth, or in the development of language." 
This statement is to the effect that I ignore the " action 
of motives " of a higher kind ; whereas these are not only 
necessarily included by me in the totality of motives, 
but repeatedly insisted upon as all-essential factors. I 
am the more surprised at this misapprehension, because, 
in the essay on ^' Specialized Administration," to which 
Prof. Cairnes refers (see Fortnightly Review, for De- 
cember, 1871), I have dwelt at considerable length on 
the altruistic sentiments and the resulting social activi- 
ties, as not having been duly taken into account by Prof. 
Huxley. 

As Prof. Cairnes indicates at the close of his first 
paper, the difficulty lies in recognizing human actions 
as, under one aspect, voluntary, and under another pj-e- 
determined. I have said elsewhere all I have to say on 
this point. Here I wish only to point out that the con- 
clusion he draws from my premises is utterly different 
from the conclusion I draw. Entering this caveat, I 
must leave all further elucidations to come in due course. 



VIEWS CO:N"CEKOT]SrG COPYKIGHT. 

In 18Y7 a Royal Commission sat to take evidence on 
the general question of Copyright, and I was invited to 
give evidence. The following result is reproduced from 
the official '' Minutes of Evidence " given on March 6 



20 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

and March 20, 1877. On a subsequent occasion (May, 
1881), at a meeting of tlie ISTational Association for tlie 
Promotion of Social Science, I expressed some further 
views, which were published in vol. XIY of the society's 
Proceedings. 

{Chairman.) I need hardly ask, you are a writer of 
philosophical and scientific books? — I am. 

Would you give the Commission your experience of 
the terms on which you published your first book? — 
I published my first work, " Social Statics," at the end 
of 1850. Being a philosophical book it was not pos- 
sible to obtain a publisher who would undertake any 
responsibility, and I published it at my own cost. A 
publisher looks askance at philosophy, and especially 
the philosophy of a new man; hence I published on 
commission. 

Would you like to state what the result was? — The 
edition was 750; it took 14 years to sell. 

Then with respect to your next work? — In 1855 I 
published the ^'Principles of Psychology"; I again 
tried in vain to get a publisher, and published again at 
my own cost. There were 750 copies, and the sale was 
very slow. I gave away a considerable number, and the 
remainder, I suppose about 650, sold in 12^ years. 

Have you had any other similar cases? — Yes; I 
afterwards, in 1857, published a series of Essays, and, 
warned by past results, I printed only 500. That took 
10| years to sell. After that a second series of Essays, 
and a little work on Education, which both had kindred 
results, but were not quite so long in selling. I should 
add that all these sales would have taken still longer but 
for the effect produced upon them by books published 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 21 

at a later period, which helped the earlier ones to 
sell. 

Have all these subsequent works to which jou now 
refer been published in the same way? — ^o. Towards 
1860 I began to be anxious to publish a " System of Phi- 
losophy/' which I had been elaborating for a good many 
years. I found myself in the position of losing by all 
my books; and after considering various plans, I decided 
upon the plan of issuing to subscribers in quarterly parts, 
and to the public in volumes when completed. Before 
the initial volume, " First Principles,'' was finished, I 
found myself still losing. During issue of the second 
volume, the " Principles of Biology," I was still losing. 
In the middle of the third volume I was still losing so 
much that I found I was frittering away all I possessed. 
I went back upon my accounts, and found that in the 
course of 15 years I had lost nearly 1,200L — adding in- 
terest, more than 1,200?.; and as I was evidently going 
on ruining myself, I issued to the subscribers a notice 
of cessation. 

Was that loss the difference between the money that 
you had actually spent in publishing the books and the 
money you had received in return? — ^^sTot exactly. The 
difference was between my total expenditure in publish- 
ing the books and living in the most economical way 
possible, and the total returns. That is to say, cutting 
down my expenses to the smallest amount, I lost 1,200Z. 
by the inadequate returns, and trenched to that extent 
upon capital. 

But you continued afterwards, did you not, to pub- 
lish? — I continued afterwards, simply, I may say, by 
accident. On two previous occasions, in the course of 
these 15 years, I had been enabled to persevere, spite of 



22 VIEWS CONCERKLNG COPYRIGHT. 

losses, by bequests. On tbis tbird occasion, after tbe 
issue of tbe notice, property wbicb I inberit came to me 
in time to prevent tbe cessation. 

May I ask bow long it took before you began to be 
repaid for your losses? — My losses did not continue very 
long after tbat: tbe tide turned and my books began to 
pay. I bave calculated wbat lengtb of time it bas taken 
to repay my losses, and find tbey were repaid in 1874; 
tbat is to say, in 24 years after I began I retrieved my 
position. 

Tben tbe Commission understand tbat your books are 
now remunerative? — Tbey are now remunerative, and 
for tbis reason: — As I bave explained, I bad to publisb 
on commission. Commission is a system wbicb, tbrow- 
ing all tbe cost upon tbe autbor, is very disastrous for 
bim if bis books do not pay, and, as you see in tbis case, 
bas been very disastrous to me; but wben tbey do pay it 
is extremely advantageous, inasmucb as in tbat case tbe 
publisber wbo does tbe business takes only 10 per cent., 
and tbe wbole of tbe difference between cost and pro- 
ceeds, minus tbat 10 per cent., comes to tbe autbor. I 
bave calculated wbat are my actual returns, on two sup- 
positions. I bave ascertained tbe percentage I get upon 
1,000 copies, supposing tbat I set up tbe type solely for 
tbat 1,000 copies — supposing, tbat is, tbat tbe cost of 
composition comes into tbe cost. In tbat case I reap 
3 Of per cent. But I reap mucb more. I was sanguine 
enougb, wben I began tbis series of books, to stereotype. 
Tbe result is tbat now I simply bave to print additional 
thousands as tbey are demanded. If I suppose tbe cost 
of composition and stereotyping to bave been paid for 
tbe first edition, and only estimate tbe cost of paper and 
printing in tbe successive editions, tben I am reaping 



VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYKIGHT. 23 

4:lf per cent. The actual percentage, of course, is one 
which lies between those two; but year by year, with 
each additional thousand, I approach more nearly to the 
limit of 41f per cent. I should point out that the result 
of this is that I receive, as may be supposed, a consider- 
able return upon the moderate numbers sold. 

And that being so, can you tell the Commission what 
in your opinion would have happened had there been in 
existence a system under which three years, say, after 
date of publication anyone could have reprinted your 
books, paying you a royalty of 10 per cent.? — The result 
would have been that my losses would not have been 
repaid now. After 26 years' work I should still have 
been out of pocket; and should be out of pocket for 
many years to come. 

(Mr. TroUope.) Under such a system do you think 
that you would ever have recovered that money? — I am 
taking it on the most favourable supposition, merely 
supposing that all other things but the percentage had 
remained the same. 

(Cliairman.) Assuming ihe system of royalty to be 
in existence, what would be the result on your present 
returns, supposing losses to have been repaid? — Between 
two thirds and three fourths of those returns would be 
cut off. They would be reduced to little more than a 
fourth of their present amount. 

{8ir H. Holland.) How do you arrive at that result? 
— By comparing the supposed percentage with the per- 
centage I actually receive. 

Assuming a royalty of 10 per cent, upon the retail 
price ? — Yes. 

{Chairman.) Would it not be probable that the re- 
duction in price of your books would so increase the sales 



24 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

that you would reap a larger return tlian you liave sup- 
posed in the estimate that you have now given? — I think 
not, or very little. First of all for the reason that the 
amount of reduction would not be anything like so great 
as at first sight appears. If a publisher issued rival edi- 
tions of my books without my assent, on paying a roy- 
alty, he would only do so to make a profit beyond that 
which mere commission would bring. My present pub- 
lisher is content vnth 10 per cent, commission. A pub- 
lisher who competed as a speculation would Want to make 
his profit beyond the 10 per cent, commission: as I as- 
certain, probably, at least a further 10 per cent. Then 
there would be my own 10 per cent, royalty. So that 
I find the reduction in price under such a royalty system 
would only be about 15 per cent. That is to say, the 
reduction would be from 20s. to iTs. ^ow I am of 
opinion that a reduction of the price of one of my books 
by that amount would have but a small effect upon the 
sales, the market being so limited. Let me use an illus- 
tration. Take such a commodity as cod-liver oil, which 
is a very necessary thing for a certain limited class. Sup- 
pose it is contended that, out of regard for those to whom 
it is so necessary, retailers should be compelled to take 
a smaller profit, and you reduce the price by 15 per cent. 
The consumption would be very little influenced, be- 
cause there would be none except those who had it pre- 
scribed for them who would be willing to take it, and 
they must have it. Xow take one of my books, say the 
" Principles of Psychology." Instead of calling it 
" caviare to the general," let us call it cod-liver oil to the 
general: I think it probable that if you were to ask 99 
people out of 100 whether they would daily take a spoon- 
ful of cod-liver oil or read a chapter of that book, they 



i 



VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYRIGHT. 25 

would prefer tlie cod-liver oil. And if so it is quite 
clear, I think, that no lowering of the price by 3s. out 
of 20s. would in any considerable degree increase the 
number of persons who bought the ^' Principles of Psy- 
chology." The class is so limited and so special that 
there would be no increase of profit of a considerable 
kind in consequence of an increased number sold. 

(Mr. Trollope.) But are there not many people who 
would have benefited by cod-liver oil who cannot get it 
at present because of the price? — I think in all those 
cases in which they would be benefited they get it by 
hook or by crook when it is prescribed for them. 

And in the same way with your books you think? — 
Yes. For instance, university men have to read them, 
and they would buy them in any case. 

(Chairman.) What would have happened to you 
originally had there been a law giving a copyright only 
of short duration, under such an arrangement of per- 
centage as that which you have just named? — I think 
it is tolerably obvious, from what I have already said, 
that I should not have been wholly deterred. I should 
have gone on losing for many years j but I think it is 
also clear that I should have stopped short much sooner 
than I did. Every author is naturally sanguine about 
his books: he has hopes which nobody else entertains. 
The result is that he will persevere, in the hope of at 
some time or other reaping some return, when to other 
persons there seems to be no probability of the kind. 
But supposing it becomes manifest to him that the copy- 
right law is such that when his books succeed, if they 
ever do succeed, he will not get large profits, then the 
discouragement will be much greater, and he will stop 
much sooner. If I, for instance, instead of seeing that 



26 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

under tlie system of commission I should eventually, if 
I succeeded, repay myself and get a good return, had 
seen that eventually, if I succeeded, I should receive but 
small gains, I should have given it up. 

Are there other publications which you have under- 
taken besides those to which you have already refen-ed? 
— Yes. About 10 years ago I commenced preparing 
works now published under the name of " Descriptive 
Sociology," in large folio parts, and containing tables 
and classified extracts representing the civilisations of 
various societies. I employed gentlemen to make these 
compilations. 

Do you wish to state what has been the result of that 
undertaking so far? — Yes. I made up my accounts last 
Christmas. I had then in the course of those 10 years 
expended 2,9 5 8L odd upon eight parts (five published 
and three in hand), and my net return from sales of 
the five parts published in England and America was 
608L 10s. 

May I ask whether you ever expect to get back the 
money you have expended? — I may possibly get back 
the printing expenses on the earliest part, and most popu- 
lar part, that dealing with the English civilization, in 
1880, at the present rate of sale. The printing expenses 
of the other parts I do not expect to get back for many 
years longer. The cost of compilation I expect to get 
back if I live to be over 100. 

(Mr. Daldy.) You spoke of the circulation in Eng- 
land and America. May I ask. Do you send stereotype 
plates to America? — I did at first send stereotype plates 
to America, but the thing having proved to be so great 
a loss I now send a portion of the printed edition. 

(Chairman,) May I ask why do you expect repay- 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT, 27 

ment of the cost of compilation to be so slow as you 
stated in your answer to my last question? — The reason 
is that I made a promise to the compilers entailing that. 
The compilers are university men, to whom I could 
afford to give only such salaries as sufficed for their 
necessary expenses. To make the thing better for them, 
and to be some incentive, I told them that when the 
printing expenses on any one part were repaid, I would 
commence to divide with the compiler of it the returns 
of subsequent sales: the result being, that the cost of 
compilation comes back to me only at half the previous 
rate. I name this because it shows that in the absence 
of a long copyright, I could have given no such contin- 
gent advantage to the compilers. I wish to point out 
another way in which a short copyright would have im- 
peded me. As a further incentive to these compilers to 
do their work well, as also make the prospect better for 
them, I gave them to understand that the copyrights and 
the stereotype plates would be theirs after my death. Of 
course with a short copyright I could not have done that. 

Then in your opinion it is only by a long duration of 
copyright that you can be enabled to recover any con- 
siderable part of the money that you have sunk in these 
publications ? — Certainly. If it were possible for anyone 
to reprint, such small return as goes towards diminish- 
ing this immense loss would be in part intercepted. 

But if this work, which you call " Descriptive Soci- 
ology, '^ is so unremunerative, how do you imagine you 
would be in danger of having it reprinted under the 
suggested system of royalty? — It appears at first sight 
not a rational expectation, but it is perfectly possible. 
Each number of the work consists of a set of tables and 
a set of classified extracts. It was suggested by a re- 



28 VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYRIGHT. 

viewer of the first part, the English part, that the tables 
should be separately printed, mounted on boards, and 
hung up in schools. The suggestion was a good one, and 
I have even had thoughts of doing it myself. A pub- 
lisher might take up that suggestion, and might issue 
those independently of me, and diminish what small 
sale I now have. Again, the work is very cumbrous and 
awkward; that can hardly be helped; but a publisher 
might see that the extracts arranged in ordinary volume 
form would be valuable by themselves apart from the 
tables, and might get a good sale independently; and 
again my small returns would be cut into. 

(Sir H. Holland.) That objection of yours would 
be partly met by the suggestion of Mr. Macfie, who 
brought this question of royalty before us, because his 
suggestion is, that no reprint is to differ from the origi- 
nal edition without the author's consent, either in the 
way of abbreviation, enlargement, or alteration of the 
text. Therefore, under that regulation, if that is carried 
out, a publisher could not print half of this book with- 
out your consent? — That would so far, if it can be prac- 
tically worked out, meet my objection. 

(Mr. Trollope.) But you have stated that you 
thought yourself of using this form of abridgment to 
which allusion is made? — I have. 

And if this form of abridgment when made by you 
could be republished again by anybody else, then your 
profit would be interfered with? — ^o doubt of it. 

(Chairman.) Supposing the suggested system of 
short copyright and royalty had been in force, would 
you have undertaken these works to which you have re- 
ferred? — Certainly not. The enterprise was an improm- 
ising one, pecuniarily considered, and it would have been 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 29 

almost an insane one, I think, had there not been the 
possibility of eventually getting back some returns from 
sales that were necessarily very slow. Moreover, the 
hopes under which the compilers have worked I could 
never have given to them. 

Then are we to gather from your evidence that the 
system of short copyright and royalty would be injurious 
to the books of the graver class which do not appeal to 
the popular tastes? — I think so; it would be especially 
injurious to that particular class which of all others 
needs encouragement. 

(Sir H. Holland.) As requiring most thought and 
brain work on the part of the author? — Yes, and being 
least remunerative. 

(Chairman.) I understand you to say that in all 
these cases you have not parted with the copyright your- 
self? — ]^o, I have not. 

"Now assuming that the authors of these graver books 
sold their copyrights, do you think this royalty system 
would still act prejudicially upon them? — I think very 
decidedly. I have understood that it is contended that 
authors who sell their copyrights would not be affected 
by this arrangement. One of the answers I heard given 
here to-day sufficed to show that that is not true; inas- 
much as a publisher who had to meet these risks would 
not give as much for copyright as he would otherwise 
give. His argument would be unanswerable. He would 
say, " Your book is a success, or not a success; if not a 
success, I lose what I give you for copyright; if a suc- 
cess, I shall have it reprinted upon me, and again I shall 
lose what I give you for copyright. I must, therefore, 
reduce the amount which I give for the copyright.'' 
Moreover, I believe that the reduction in the value of 



30 VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYRIGHT. 

copyright would be mucli greater than the facts justified. 
In the first place, the publisher himself would look to 
the possibility of reprinting with a fear beyond that 
which actual experience warranted. Frequently a sug- 
gested small danger acts upon the mind in a degree out 
of all proportion to its amount. Take such a case as the 
present small-pox epidemic, in which you find that one 
person in 30,000 dies in a week; in which, therefore, 
the risk of death is extremely small. Look at this actual 
risk of death and compare it with the alarms that you 
find prevailing amongst people. It is clear that the fear 
of an imagined consequence of that kind, is often much 
in excess of the actual danger. Similarly, I conceive that 
the publisher himself would unconsciously over-estimate 
the danger of reprints. But beyond that he would ex- 
aggerate his over-estimate as an excuse for beating down 
copyright. He would say to the author, '^ You see this 
danger; I cannot face so great a risk without guarding 
myself; and you must submit to a large reduction." 

The evidence as continued on March 20 was as follows: 

(Chairman.) I will ask you if you have any ex- 
planations you wish to offer on any point connected with 
the evidence which you gave on the last occasion? — Yes; 
I have to rectify some misapprehensions. From the re- 
statement made by Mr. Farrer, it would appear that in 
discussing the question of profits from re-publication of 
one of my works, I said I had " found that no other pub- 
lisher would undertake the work without an additional 
profit of 10 per cent.," which implies that I had endeav- 
oured to obtain another publisher. My meaning was 
that I ascertained that any other publisher who thought 



VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYRIGHT. 31 

of issuing a rival edition, would expect to make a profit 
of 10 per cent, beyond the 10 per cent, commission for 
doing the business. Further, I have to remark that the 
case I took as illustrating the improbability that I should 
obtain any considerable compensation from increased 
sales under the royalty system, was the case of one of 
my works only, the " Principles of Psychology," and in 
respect of this, I may admit that there would be little 
danger of a rival edition. But it is not so with others of 
my works — with the work on " Education,'^ now in its 
fourth thousand; with " First Principles," now in its 
fourth thousand, and especially with the just-issued first 
volume of the " Principles of Sociology." These are now 
sufficiently in demand, and, especially the last, suffi- 
ciently popular in manner and matter, to make rival 
editions quite probable. 

^ow, with respect to the stereotype plates, would 
they not enable you to exclude the rival edition of which 
you speak? — I think not. In the first place, the assump- 
tion that other publishers would be deterred from issuing 
rival editions by my stereotype plates, implies that other 
publishers would know I had them. I do not see how 
other publishers are to know it, until after I had myself 
printed new editions — even English publishers, and it 
is out of the question that colonial publishers should 
know it. Hence, therefore, the fact of my having stereo- 
type plates would not prevent such rival editions. Con- 
sequently these rival editions, making their appearance 
unawares, would compete with my existing stock, printed 
in a comparatively expensive style, and would oblige me 
either to sacrifice that stock, or to lower the price to one 
far less remunerative. Then, subsequently, there would 
not be the supposed ability to compete so advantageously 



32 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYEIGHT. 

witli editions published by otbers. An edition to be sold 
at a cheap rate must not be in large type, well spaced, 
and with ample margins, but must be in small type, and 
much matter put into the page. Hence the existing 
stereotype plates, adapted for printing only books in a 
superior style, could not be used to print cheap books: 
the quantity of paper and the cost of printing would be 
much larger items than to one who arranged the matter 
fitly for a cheap edition. 

Then are we to gather that you do not think that 
from any such cheap edition you would derive a profit 
from the royalty compensating you for your loss? — 
I^othing like compensating. Although the sales of these 
more readable books I have instanced might be consider- 
ably increased, the increase could not be anything like 
as great as would be required to produce the return I now 
have. Even supposing the price of the rival edition were 
the same, which of course it would not be, the 10 per 
cent, royalty w^ould bring in the same amount, only sup- 
posing four times the number were sold that I sell now; 
and as, by the hypothesis, the price of the volume, to get 
any such larger sale, must be much lower, the royalty 
would bring in so much the less. If, say, ^' First Prin- 
ciples " were issued at half the present price, 8,000 would 
have to be sold instead of 1,000 to bring in by royalty 
the present returns. Such an increase of the sale would 
be out of the question; even one half of it would be im- 
probable, so that certainly one half of my returns would 
be lost. 

Have you any other personal experience that you 
wish to bring before the Commission to show that such 
a modification of the copyright law as you have been dis- 
cussing would be disadvantageous to literature of the 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 33 

graver kind? — I think I have. ^' First Principles '' was 
published in 1862, and in the course of some years the 
doctrine it contains underwent, in my mind, a consider- 
able further development, and I found it needful to re- 
organise the book. I spent ^yq months in doing this; 
cancelled a large number of stereotype plates; and was 
thus at considerable cost of time and money. As I have 
already pointed out, the work being now in its fourth 
thousand, has had a degree of success such that there 
might, under the proposed arrangement, very possibly 
have been a rival edition at the time I proposed to make 
these alterations. Had there been such a rival edition, 
this cost of re-organisation to me would have been more 
serious even than it was; since the difference between 
the original and the improved edition, adequately known 
only to those who bought the improved edition, would 
not have prevented the sale of the rival edition ; and the 
sale of the improved edition would have greatly dimin- 
ished. In any case the errors of the first edition would 
have been more widely spread; and in the absence of 
ability to bear considerable loss, it would have been 
needful to let them go and become permanent. A kin- 
dred tendency of the arrest of improvements would 
occur with all scientific books and all books of the higher 
kind, treating of subjects in a state of growth. 

With the object of rendering useful books as accessi- 
ble as possible to the public, do you think that those 
engaged in their production and distribution should be 
restrained from making what might be called undue 
profits? — In answer to the first part of the question I 
hope to say something presently, showing that the ad- 
vantage of increased accessibility of books is by no means 
unqualified; since greater accessibility may be a mis- 



34 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

chief, if it tells in favour of worthless books instead of 
valuable books. But passing this for the present, I 
would comment on the proposition, which I perceive has 
been made before the Commission, that it is desirable 
to secure for books " the cheapest possible price consist- 
ent with a fair profit to those concerned." I here ven- 
ture to draw a parallel. What is now thought so desir- 
able respecting books, was in old times thought desirable 
respecting food — '' the cheapest possible price consistent 
with a fair profit to those concerned." And to secure 
this all-essential advantage, more peremptory, indeed, 
than that now to be secured, there were regulations of 
various kinds extending through centuries, alike in Eng- 
land and on the Continent, — forbidding of exports, re- 
moving of middlemen, punishing of forestallers. But I 
need hardly recall the fact that all these attempts to 
interfere with the ordinary course of trade failed, and 
after doing much mischief were abolished. The at- 
tempt to secure cheap books by legislative arrangements, 
seems to me nothing less than a return to the long-aban- 
doned system of trade regulations; and is allied to the 
fixing of rates of interest, of prices, of wages. In the 
past it was the greediness of money-lenders that had to 
be checked, or, as in France for many generations, the 
greediness of hotel-keepers ; and now it appears to be the 
greediness of book-producers that needs checking. I 
do not see, however, any reason for believing that regu- 
lations made by law to secure cheap bread for the body 
having failed, there is likelihood of success for regula- 
tions aiming to secure cheap bread for the mind. 

Then do we understand you to mean that no analogy 
furnished by past experience in commercial affairs can 
be held to imply that the proposed royalty plan would 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 35 

succeed? — I think that all the facts are against it. I 
find it stated in the evidence lately given that there has 
not been raised " an insuperable objection in point of 
principle '' to the plan of a royalty. If no such objection 
in point of principle has been raised, I think one may be 
raised; the objection, namely, that it is distinctly op- 
posed to the principles of free trade. One of the aims of 
the plan, as expressed in the words of the same witness, 
is the " preservation of a fair profit to the author." ISTow, 
on the face of it, it seems to me that any proposal to se- 
cure fair profits by legislation, is entirely at variance with 
free trade principles, which imply that profits are to be 
determined by the ordinary course of business. But 
further, I would point out that if it is competent for the 
legislature to say what is a " fair profit to the author,'' I 
do not see why it is not competent for the legislature to 
say what is a fair profit to the publisher; indeed, I may 
say that it is not only as competent but much more com- 
petent. I take it to be impossible for the legislature to 
fix with anything like equity the profit of authors, if 
profit is to bear any relation to either skill or labour, as 
it should do ; inasmuch as one author puts into a page of 
his book ten times as much skill as another, and, in 
other cases, ten times as much labour as another. Hence 
therefore, if they are to be paid at the same percentage 
on the price, there is no proportion in that case secured 
between the value of the labour and what they receive. 
Similarly, if we consider the number sold, the royalty 
which might afford ample return to an author who sold 
a popular book in large numbers would afford little re- 
turn to an author who produced a grave book selling in 
small numbers. Obviously then it is extremely difficult, 
and in fact impossible, for the legislature to fix an equita- 



36 VIEWS CONCERNlNa COPYRIGHT. 

ble royalty; but it is by no means so difficult for the 
legislature to fix an equitable rate of profit for the pub- 
lisher. The function of the publisher is a comparatively 
mechanical and uniform function: the same practically 
for all books, the same for all publishers, and hence is a 
thing very much easier to estimate in respect of the pro- 
portion; and in fact we have the evidence that it can be 
fixed with something like fairness, inasmuch as publish- 
ers themselves voluntarily accept a 10 per cent, commis- 
sion. Hence, I say, not only does the carrying out of the 
principle imply that if, in pursuit of alleged public ad- 
vantage, the profit of the author should be fixed, then 
also should the profit of the publisher be fixed, but that 
it is much easier to do the last than to do the fii'st. If 
so, then, it is competent for the legislature to go a step 
further. If there is to be a Government officer to issue 
royalty stamps, there may as well be a Government 
officer to whom a publisher shall take his printer's bills, 
and who adding to these the trade allowances, authors' 
10 per cent, royalty, and publishers' 10 per cent, com- 
mission, shall tell him at what price he may advertise 
the book. This is the logical issue of the plan; and this 
is not free trade. 

(Sir H. Holland.) You will hardly contend that the 
system of royalty is less in accord with free trade than 
the existing system of monopoly; you will not carry it 
so far as that, will you? — I do not admit the propriety of 
the word " monopoly." 

Without using the word " monopoly," let me say, 
than the present system of copyright for a certain term 
of years? — I regard that as just as much coming within 
the limits of free trade as I hold the possession, or mo- 
nopoly, of any other kind of property to be consistent 



VIEWS CONCEENING COPYRIGHT. 37 

with free trade. There are people who call the capitalist 
a monopolist: many working men do that. I do not 
think he is rightly so called; and similarly if it is alleged 
that the author's claim to the product of his brain-work 
is a monopoly, I do not admit it to be a monopoly. I re- 
gard both the term ^' free trade '' as applied to the unre- 
strained issue of rival editions, and the term " monopo- 
ly " as applied to the author's copyright, as question- 
begging terms. 

Without saying what opinion I hold upon the point, 
and avoiding the use of the words " monopoly " and 
" free trade," I wish to know whether you think it most 
consistent with the doctrines of political economy, that 
every person should be able, upon payment, to publish a 
particular book, or that only one person should have it in 
his power to do so for a certain time? — Every person is 
allowed and perfectly free to publish a book on any sub- 
ject. An author has no monopoly of a subject. An au- 
thor writes a novel ; another man may write a novel. An 
author writes a book on geology ; another man may write 
a book on geology. He no more monopolises the subject 
than any trader who buys raw material and shapes it into 
an article of trade is a monopolist. There is more raw 
material which another man may buy. The only thing 
that the author claims is, that part of the value of the 
article which has been given to it by his shaping process; 
which is what any artizan does. The way in which this 
position of authors is spoken as " monopoly " reminds 
me of the doctrine of Proudhon — " Property is robbery." 
You may give a stigma to a thing by attaching to it a 
name not in the least appropriate. 

(ilfr. TrolJope.) I understand your objection to a 
system- of royalties to be this, that no possible quota that 



38 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYEIGHT. 

could be fixed would be a just payment for all works? — 
That is one objection. There is no possibility of fixing 
one that would apply to all works, inasmuch as the thing 
paid for is an extremely variable thing, more variable 
than in almost any other occupation. 

I put that question to another witness before you, but 
I am afraid failed to make him understand me. I am 
therefore glad to have the answer from you in order that 
we may show (I think you will agree with me) that no 
special royalty specified by Act of Parliament could be 
just to poetry, and to the drama, and to fiction, and to 
science, and to history at the same time? — Quite so. I 
think it obvious, when it is put clearly, that it cannot 
be; and that is an all-essential objection. 

(Sir H. Holland.) E'or would it in your opinion be 
desirable that the question of determining what amount 
of royalty is proper in each case should be vested in some 
registrar or some single person? — It would make the 
matter still worse. It would be bad to vest it anywhere, 
but especially bad to vest it in any single official. 

(Chairman.) Are we to assume that you think the 
plan of a royalty to be at variance with the established 
principles of the science of political economy? — I think 
quite at variance with the principles of political economy. 
The proposal is to benefit the consumer of books by cheap- 
ening books. A measure effecting this will either change, 
or will not change, the returns of these engaged in pro- 
ducing books. That it will change them may be taken 
as certain: the chances are infinity to one against such 
a system leaving the returns as they are. What will the 
change be? Either to increase or decrease those returns. 
Is it said that by this regulation the returns to producers 
of books will be increased, and that they only require 



VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYRIGHT. 39 

forcing to issue cheaper editions, to reap greater profit 
themselves, at the same time that they benefit the public? 
Then the proposition is that book-producers and distri- 
butors do not understand their business, but require to 
be instructed bj the State how to carry it on more ad- 
vantageously. Few will, I think, deliberately assert this. 
There is, then, the other alternative: the returns will be 
decreased. At whose expense decreased, — printers', au- 
thors', or publisher's? Not at the expense of the print- 
ers: competition keeps down their profits at the normal 
level. Scarcely at the cost of the authors; for abundant 
evidence has shown that, on the average, authors' profits 
are extremely small. Were there no other motive for 
authorship than money-getting, there would be very few 
authors. Clearly, then, the reduction of returns is to be 
at the cost of the publisher. The assumption is that for 
some reason or other, the publishing business, unlike any 
other business, needs its returns regulated by law. 
Thinking, apparently, of prosperous publishers only, and 
forgetting that there are many who make but moderate 
incomes and very many who fail, and thinking only of 
books which sell largely, while forgetting that very many 
books bring no profits and still more entail loss, it is 
assumed that the publishing business, notwithtanding 
the competition among publishers, is abnormally profit- 
able. This seems to me a remarkable assumption. Em- 
barking in the business of publishing, like embarking 
in any other business, is determined partly by the relative 
attractiveness of the occupation and partly by the prom- 
ised returns of capital. There is no reason to think that 
the occupation of publishing differs widely from other 
occupations in attractiveness; and hence we must say 
that, competing for recruits with many other businesses, 



4:0 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

it must on the average, offer a like return on capital. 
Were it found that the average return on capital in pub- 
lishing was larger than in other businesses, there would 
immediately be more publishers; and competition would 
lower the returns. If, then, we must infer that, taking 
the returns of all publishers on the average of books, their 
profits are not higher than those of other businesses; 
what would be the effect of such a measure as that pro- 
posed, if, as anticipated, it lowered publishers' returns? 
Simply that it would drive away a certain amount of 
capital out of the publishing business into more remuner- 
ative businesses. Competition among publishers would 
decrease; and as competition decreased, their profits 
would begin to rise again, until, by and bye, after a suf- 
ficient amount of perturbation and bankruptcy, there 
would be a return to the ordinary rates of profit on capi- 
tal, and the proposed benefit to the public at the cost of 
publishers would disappear. 

Then, with a Yie'w to the permanent cheapening of 
books, we may gather that your opinion is that it would 
not be effected in the way suggested ? — I think not. The 
natural cheapening of books is beneficial; the artificial 
cheapening mischievous. 

May I ask you to explain what you mean by contrast- 
ing the natural and the artificial cheapening of books ? — 
By natural cheapening I mean that lowering of prices 
which follows increase of demand. I see no reason, a 
priori, for supposing that publishers differ from other 
traders in their readiness to cater for a larger public, if 
they see their way to making a profit by so doing; and, 
a posteriori, there is abundant proof that they do this. 
The various series of cheap books, bringing down even 
the whole of Shakespeare to a shilling, and all Byron to 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 41 

a shilling, and each of Scott's novels to sixpence, suffi- 
ciently prove that prices will be lowered in the publish- 
ing trade if the market is adequately extensive, just as 
in any other trade. If it be said that in this case authors 
have not to be paid, I would simply refer to such a series 
as that of Mr. Bohn, who, notwithstanding the payments 
to translators and others, published numerous valuable 
books at low rates. Moreover, we have conclusive evi- 
dence that with the works of still-living authors the same 
thing happens, when the market becomes sufficiently 
large to make a low price profitable. Witness not only 
the cheap editions of many modern novels, but the cheap 
editions even of Mr. Carlyle's works, and Mr. Mill's 
works. Deductively and inductively, then, we may say 
that there is a natural cheapening of books, going as far 
as trade profits allow; as there is a natural cheapening of 
other things. Conversely, I mean by artificial cheapen- 
ing, that kind which is anticipated from the measure pro- 
posed; for it is expected by means of this measure to 
make publishers issue books at lower rates than they other- 
wise do. And this is essentially a proposal to make them 
publish at a relative loss. If, as already argued, the 
average rates of publishers' profits are not above those of 
ordinary business-profits, these measures for lowering 
their prices, must either drive them out of the business 
or be inoperative. To put the point briefly — if there is 
an obvious profit to be obtained, publishers will lower 
their prices of their own accord; and the proposed com- 
petitive system will not make profits obvious where they 
v/ere not so before. 

But if there was free competition on the payment of 
the author's royalty, might it not be that another publish- 
er would be led to issue a cheap edition when the original 
4 



42 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYEIGHT. 

publisher would not? — I see no reason to think this. 
The assumption appears to be that everybody but author 
and original publisher can see the advantage of a cheap 
edition, but that author and original publisher are blind. 
Contrariwise, it seems to me that the original producers 
of the book are those best enabled to say when a cheap 
edition will answer. The original producers of the book 
know all the data — number sold, cost, return, and so 
forth; and can judge of the probable demand. Another 
publisher is in the dark, and it does not seem a reason- 
able proposition that the publisher who is in the dark can 
best estimate the remunerativeness of a cheap edition. 
If it is hoped that, being in the dark, he may rashly 
venture, and the public may so profit, then the hope is 
that he may be tempted into a losing business. But the 
public cannot profit in the long run by losing busi- 
nesses. 

(Sir H. Holland.) Take the " Life of Lord Macau- 
lay " ; you know that Tauchnitz has published a cheap 
edition in four volumes, — a very neat edition, good paper 
and good print. Is it not possible that if this system of 
royalty is introduced, without considering whether the 
author would lose by it, a cheap edition like that would 
be put upon the market at once, and would pay the pub- 
lisher? — It is possible that it would be done earlier than 
it is now done. I take it that the normal course of things 
is that, first of all, the dear edition should be published 
and have its sale, and supply its market, and that then, 
when that sale has flagged, there should come the aim to 
supply a wider market by publishing a cheap edition. 

You are aware that one of the advantages which the 
advocates of this royalty system most strongly dwell 
upon, is that under the present system the great mass of 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 43 

tlie reading public are not able to purchase the books; 
those who have the advantage of circulating libraries can 
get them and read them, but poorer persons can neither 
purchase nor read them, whereas under the other system 
an edition like Tauchnitz would be at once put out, and 
it is contended that this, though it might be a loss to the 
author, would be a benefit to the public? — Then I take 
it that the proposal really amounts to this, that whereas, 
at present, the poorer class of readers are inconvenienced 
by having to wait for a cheap edition a certain number 
of years, they shall, by this arrangement, be advantaged 
by having a cheap edition forthwith; which is to say 
that people with smaller amounts of money shall have 
no disadvantages from their smaller amounts of money. 
It is communistic practically: it is simply equalising the 
advantages of wealth and poverty. 

{Chairman.) Then we may assume that in your 
opinion the royalty system would not operate in cheapen- 
ing books in the long run? — I think that in the first 
place, supposing it should act in the manner intended, by 
producing rival editions, it would act in cheapening just 
that class of books which it would be a mischief to 
cheapen. I have already intimated in a previous reply, 
that the alleged advantage of cheapening books is to be 
taken with a qualification; inasmuch as there is a cheap- 
ening which is beneficial and a cheapening which is in- 
jurious. And I have got, I think, pretty clear evidence 
that the class of books cheapened would be a class which 
it is undesirable to cheapen. Being one of the committee 
of the London Library, I have some facilities for obtain- 
ing evidence with regard to the circulation of various 
classes of books ; and I have got the librarian to draw me 
up what he entitles — ^' Recorded circulation of the fol- 



44 VIEWS CONCEEISTING COPYRIGHT. 

lowing books during the three years following their intro- 
duction into the London Library." Here, in the first 
place, is a book of science — Lyell's " Principles of Ge- 
ology " ; that went out 28 times. Here, on the other 
hand, is a sensational book, — Dixon's ^' Spiritual 
Wives " ; that went out 120 times. Here, again, is a 
highly instructive book, — Maine's "Ancient Law" ; that 
went out 29 times. Here is a book of tittle-tattle about 
old times, — " Her Majesty's Tower " ; that went out 
127 times. Here, again, is another book of valuable in- 
quiry, — Lecky's " European Morals " ; that went out 23 
times. Here is a book of gossip, — " Crabb Kobinson's 
Diary " ; that went out 154 times. Lecky's " History 
of Eationalism " went out 13 times; Greville's "Me- 
moirs " went out 116 times. Herschel's " Astronomy " 
went out 25 times; Jesse's "George the Third" went 
out 67 times. I have added together these contrasted re- 
sults, and the grave instructive books, taken altogether, 
number 118 issues, while the sensational and gossiping 
books number 584 issues; that is to say, more than five 
times the number of issues. ]^ow, the London Library is, 
among circulating libraries at least, the one which is of 
all the highest in respect of the quality of its readers: it 
is the library of the elite of London. If, then, we see that 
there go out to these readers five times as many of these 
books which minister to the craving for excitement, and 
are really dissipating books, as there go out the grave, 
serious instructive books, we may judge what will be the 
proportion of demand for such books in the public at 
large. ^N'ow let us ask what a publisher will do in face of 
these facts. He knows what these demands are; and he 
has to choose what books he will reprint. A publisher 
who has laid himself out for rival editions is compara- 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 45 

tively unlikely to choose one of the really valuable books, 
which needs more circulating. I will not say he will never 
do it. He will do it sometimes; but he will be far more 
likely to choose one of these books appealing to a numer- 
ous public, and of which a cheap edition will sell largely. 
Hence, therefore, the obvious result will be to multiply 
these books of an inferior kind. Now already that class 
of books is detrimentally large: already books that are 
bad in art, bad in tone, bad in substance, come pouring 
out from the press in such torrents as to very much sub- 
merge the really instructive books; and this measure 
would have the effect of making that torrent still greater, 
and of still more submerging the really instructive books. 
Therefore, I hold that if the stimulus to rival editions 
acted as it is expected to act, the result would be to mul- 
tiply the mischievous books. 

(Mr. Trollope.) Do you not think that in making the 
parallel that you have there made you have failed to 
consider the mental capacities of readers? — I was about, 
in answering the next question, to deal indirectly with 
that; pointing out that while there is a certain deter- 
mining of the quality of reading by the mental capacity, 
there is a certain range within which you may minister 
more or you may minister less. There are people who, 
if they are tempted, will spend all their time on light 
literature, and if they are less tempted will devote some 
of their time to grave literature. Already the graver 
books, the instructive books, those that really need cir- 
culating, are impeded very much by this enormous soli- 
citation from the multitude of books of a gossipy, sen- 
sational kind. People have but a certain amount of time, 
and a certain amount of money, to spend upon books. 
Hence what is taken of time and money for uninstructive 



46 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

books is time and money taken away from the instructive ; 
and I contend that if there were a diminution in the 
quantity of the books of this sensational kind published, 
there would be a larger reading of the really instruc- 
tive books; and that, conversely, the multiplication of 
this class of lighter books would tend to diminish the 
reading of instructive books. I am now speaking, not, 
of course, of the higher amusing books, because there are 
many that are works of value, but of the lower novels, 
Miss Braddon's and others such. 

Do you think that a man coming home, say, from his 
8 or 10 hours labour in court day after day is in a con- 
dition to read Lyell's Geology as men read one of Miss 
Braddon's novels? We are speaking of some ordinary 
man. — E^o, not an ordinary man, certainly. 

Have we not to deal with literature for ordinary men ? 
— For both ordinary and extraordinary men; the whole 
public. 

Are not the ordinary men very much the more nu- 
merous ? — Certainly. 

Is it not, therefore, necessary to provide some kind of 
literature, as good as you can, but such that the ordinary 
mind can receive and can turn into some profit, together 
with the normal work of life? — I am not calling into 
question in the least the desirableness of a large supply 
of literature of an enlivening and amusing and pleasant 
kind, as well as a large supply of graver literature. My 
remarks point to the literature that is neither instructive 
nor aesthetic in the higher sense, but which is bad in 
art, bad in tone, worthless in matter. There is a large 
quantity of that literature, and that literature I take to 
be the one which will be the most fostered by the pro- 
posed measures. I do not in the least reprobate the read- 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYEIGHT. 47 

ing of ligliter works if they are good in quality. I refer 
to the class of works which I regard as not good in 
quality. 

But do you not think you must leave that to settle 
itself on those principles of free trade which you have 
just enunciated so clearly? — Certainly; I am objecting 
to a policy which would tend to encourage the one and 
not encourage the other. 

{Sir H. Holland.) The subscribers to the London 
Library are, as you say, the elite of readers? — Yes. 

And is not that the reason why there is this difference 
as to the reading of good and bad books taken out from 
that library; is it not attributable to the fact that these 
people have probably bought and have in their own 
houses the good books, but that they want to look 
through these other books, and therefore get them from 
the library? — There may be a qualification of that kind; 
but inasmuch as a very large proportion of the readers of 
the London Library are ladies, and those who come for 
lighter literature, I do not think it at all probable that 
they would have bought Lecky or Maine, or any books of 
that kind. 

I ask the question because I rather think that you 
will find a very curious difference from that which you 
have been stating if you go to the Manchester and Liver- 
pool free libraries. You will find there that the working 
men take out largely Macaulay's " History of England " 
and that class of book? — Well, whatever qualifications 
may be made in this estimate, or the inferences from this 
estimate, I do not think they can touch the general pro- 
position that books of this kind which in the London 
Library circulate most largely, are books of the kind 
which circulate most largely among the general public, 



48 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

and books of the kind whicli a publisher of rival editions 
would choose. That is mj point. 

But might not that very evil to which you refer be 
met by improving the taste of the majority of the poorer 
readers, by enabling them to get at once cheap editions 
of good books? — The question is, w^hich are the cheap 
editions that will be issued. I contend that they are 
the cheap editions of these books of a dissipating kind; 
and that the main effect will be to increase the dissipa- 
tion. 

You do not think that the earlier publication of a 
cheap edition would raise the tone of readers? — I do not 
see that it would do so, unless it could be shown that that 
would tell upon the graver and more instructive books. 
My next answer, I think, will be an answer to that. 

If you improve the tone of the readers, of course it 
does tell upon the graver books for those who have time 
to read the graver books; but there is a large class of 
readers who have not that time ? — Yes. 

(Chairman.) Referring to the illustrations which 
you have just given of works which you would denomi- 
nate as worthless, or comparatively valueless, did I hear 
among them historical memoirs and journals? — " Crabbe 
Robinson's Diary," for instance; I call that a book of 
gossip which anybody may read and be none the better 
for it. 

The question I should like to ask is, are you not of 
opinion that books of that sort are extremely valuable to 
the intending historian of the epoch to which they refer? 
— It may be that there are in them materials for him. 
I have not read the " Greville Memoirs " myself, and I 
have no intention of reading it; but my impression is 
that the great mass of it is an appeal to the love of gossip 



* 

I 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 49 

and scandal, and that it is a book which, if not read at 
all, would leave persons just as well off or better. 

Take ^^ Lord Hervey's Memoirs," in the reign of 
George the Second; if you had the privilege of reading 
that book you would probably say it was an extremely 
sensational book, but knowing the position which Lord 
Hervey occupied in the Court and family of George the 
Second, I presume we may take for granted that the ex- 
traordinary facts which he relates are facts; and if so 
they would form the basis of a great deal of truthful his- 
tory, which would be written of that reign; would not 
that be so? — It might be so, no doubt. 

Then we understand you to mean that in your opin- 
ion the royalty system would not cheapen works that you 
would describe as valuable? — I think, on the average of 
cases, quite the contrary. I believe the system would 
raise the prices of the graver books. Ask what a pub- 
lisher will say to himself when about to publish a book of 
that kind, of which he forms a good opinion. " I have 
had a high estimate given of this book. The man is a 
man to be trusted; the book possibly will be a success. 
Still my experiences of grave books generally, are such 
that I know the chances are rather against its succeeding. 
If it should be a success, and if I had ten years now to sell 
the edition, I might print 1,000; but, under this arrange- 
ment, a grave book not selling 1,000 in three years, or 
anything like it, it will never do for me to print 1,000. 
Should it be much talked about by the end of the three 
years, there might be a rival edition, and my stock would 
be left on my hands. Hence, now that there is this very 
short time in which I can sell the book, I must print a 
smaller number — say 500. But if I print 500 and ex- 
pect to get back outlay and a profit on that small number, 



50 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

I must cliarge more than I sliould do if I printed 1,000 
and liad time to sell them. Therefore the price must be 
raised." In the case of a book which did turn out a suc- 
cess, it might eventually happen that there would be a 
cheap edition issued, and that that raised price would not 
be permanent; but this argument of the publisher with 
himself, would lead him to raise the price, not only of 
that book, but of the other grave books which he pub- 
lished, all of which would stand in the same position of 
possibly being successes, but not probably; and of these, 
the great mass, the nine out of ten that did not succeed, 
the price would remain higher, — would never be lowered. 
There would not only be that reason for raising the price : 
there would be a further one. If a man in the wholesale 
book-trade, who puts down his name for a certain num- 
ber of copies, knows that a cheaper edition will possibly 
come out by-and-bye, the result will be that he will take 
a smaller number of copies than he would otherwise do. 
At the beginning he may take his 25 or 13, as the case 
may be'; but as the end of the three years is approaching 
he will say, " ISTo, I will not take a large number ; I must 
take two or three." Then, still further, the reader him- 
self will be under the same bias. He will say — " TTell 
this book is one I ought to have : I hear it highly spoken 
of, but it is probable that there will be by-and-bye a cheap 
edition; I will wait till the end of the three years." 
That is to say, both wholesale dealers and readers would 
earlier stop their purchases, thinking there might be a 
cheap edition; and that would further tend to diminish 
the number printed and to raise the price. 

(Sir H. Holland.) Might it not be that the pub- 
lisher, instead of entering into those calculations that you 
have pointed out, would consider, knowing that other 



VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYRIGHT. 51 

editions may appear, " What is the cheapest form in 
which I can print this book? What can I afford to give 
the author consistently with bringing out the cheapest 
possible book, so that I may be secure against any other 
publisher bringing out a cheaper edition " ? — It would 
be a very reasonable argument, if he knew which, out of 
these various books of the graver kind, was going to suc- 
ceed; but since nine out of ten do not succeed — do not 
succeed, at least, to the extent of getting to a second 
edition — do not succeed, therefore, so far as to make it at 
all likely that there would be a rival edition, and that a 
cheap edition would pay, he will never argue so; inas- 
much as he would in that case be printing, of the nine 
books that would not succeed sufficiently, a larger edi- 
tion than he would ever sell. He must begin in all these 
cases of doubtful grave books by printing small editions. 
Where an author brings a book to a publisher, the 
first question the publisher asks himself is, of course, this, 
^' Is this book likely to take? " and then if he thinks it 
will take, he has to consider further, in what degree 
will it take? Will it have a large sale or limited sale? 
Because, in each case the book may be a success, though 
in a different degree. Then, if it is competent for any 
other publisher to publish an edition, it may be assumed 
that such edition would be a cheap one; and, therefore, 
has not the original publisher this further question to 
put to himself: '' The book, I think, will take, but look- 
ing to the chances of a cheaper edition, I must see what 
compensation I can give to the author, publishing this 
book as cheap as possible, so that I may not be underbid 
hereafter " ?— But, I think, that the experiences of pub- 
lishers show that it does not answer their purpose to run 
the risk of cheap editions with the great mass of graver 



52 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

books; inasmucli as nine out of ten of them do not pay 
tlieir expenses — and do not pay their expenses, not be- 
cause of the high price, but because they do not get into 
vogue at all. The publisher would argue — " It will 
never do to print cheap editions of all these ten because 
one out of the number will succeed." 

Of course he does not do so now, because there is not 
any possibility of another publisher underbidding him by 
a cheap edition; but I am assuming a case where any 
pubhsher, on payment of a royalty, can publish a cheap 
edition: then the original publisher would have to con- 
sider, ^^ How cheaply can I publish this edition so that I 
may not be underbid by another publisher " ? — That, I 
say, would altogether depend upon the experience of the 
publishers as to what was, in the average of cases, the 
sale of a new book. In most instances the sale of a new 
grave book is very small — not sufficient to pay the ex- 
penses; and I think the publisher would make a great 
mistake if, in the case of such a book, he counted upon 
getting a large sale at once by a low price. The other 
argument would, it seems to me, be the one he would use. 
In fact, I not only think so, but I find my publishers 
think so. 

(Chairman.) Do you wish to instance any particular 
case in which you believe that a fixed royalty, such as we 
heard about, would have hindered the diffusion of a book 
of permanent value? — Yes; I have an extremely striking 
and, I think, wholly conclusive, instance of the fatal ef- 
fects, — the extensive fatal effects, — that would have re- 
sulted had there been any such system existing as that 
proposed. I refer to the "International Scientific Series." 
I happen to know all about the initiation of that. It was 
set on foot by an American friend of mine. Prof. You- 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 53 

mans, wlio came over here for tlie purpose. I aided him, 
and know the difficulties that were to be contended with, 
and a good deal concerning the negotiations. The pur- 
pose was to have a series of books written by the best men 
of the time, in all the various sciences, which should 
treat of certain small divisions of the sciences that are 
in states of rapid growth — giving to the public, in popu- 
lar form, the highest and latest results; and it was pro- 
posed, as a means of achieving this end, that there should 
be an international arrangement, which should secure to 
authors certain portions of profits coming from transla- 
tions, as well as profits from originals at home, and the 
hope was that some publisher might be obtained who 
would remunerate these authors of the highest type at 
good rates, so as to induce them to contribute volumes to 
the series. Well, this attempt, after much trouble, suc- 
ceeded. A number of the leading scientific men of Eng- 
land, France, and Germany were induced to co-operate. 
A publisher was found, or rather publishers here and 
elsewhere, to enter into the desired arrangements; and 
an English publisher was found who offered such terms 
to authors in England as led men in the first rank (and 
I may mention Prof. Huxley, and Prof. Tyndall, and 
Prof. Bain, and Prof. Balfour Stewart, and a great num- 
ber of others) to promise to write volumes. These men, 
I know, were reluctant, as busy men, with their many 
avocations, and their incomes to get for their families, 
would naturally be, and were induced to enter into the 
scheme only on its being made manifest to them that 
they would reap good profits. The English publisher 
offered a 20 per cent, commission on the retail price, paid 
down on first publication, and for every subsequent edi- 
tion paid six months after date; and there were certain 



5i VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

smaller percentages to come from abroad. Xow, tlie 
English publisher proposed to give those terms, knowing 
that it would be impossible for him to get back his out- 
lay unless he had a number of years in which to do it. 
He had to stereotype, he had to pay at once these sums to 
authors, and he had to publish the books at a cheap rate; 
for, by the way, I ought to have said that part of the 
plan was that these books should be sold at low prices: I 
may instance a volume of 420 pages for 5s. These terms 
would, I take it, have been absolutely out of the question 
had there been such an arrangement as that under which 
the publisher, instead of having many years to recoup 
himself, would have had rival editions to compete with in 
the space of three years. I do not, however, put that as 
an opinion. I have taken the precaution to obtain from 
Mr. King, the publisher, a definite answer on the point. 
This is the paragraph of his letter which is specially rele- 
vant : — " Authors can have no difficulty in proving that 
this " (meaning the system which I told him was pro- 
posed) '^ would be most unjust to them, a confiscation, in 
fact, of their property ; but I, from a publisher's point of 
view, should like to declare that the terms on which my 
firm have undertaken the ' International Scientific 
Series ' would be impossible on such a limitation." Xow 
here, then, we have a series of highly valuable books, I 
think of the kind specially to be encouraged, amounting 
to between 20 and 30 already published, and potentially 
to a much larger number, which would not have existed 
at all had there been in force the arrangement proposed; 
inasmuch as the publisher affirms that he would not have 
offered such terms, and I can testify that in the absence 
of terms as tempting as those, authors would not have 
agreed to co-operate. 



VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYRIGHT. 55 

(Sir H. Holland.) Was Mr. King made aware that 
there would be a limited time within which each volume 
would be protected? — Yes, three years. He did not 
count upon anything like adequate return in that time. 
He says — " We are a long way off profit as yet on the 
series " (I think it is nearly five years since it com- 
menced), " although I am convinced that ultimately we 
and the authors, too, will be well satisfied.'' 

That would raise the question which I wanted to put, 
whether in a case like that it would have been possible 
to have published a cheaper edition than the one now 
published? — Yes, in the absence of the author's 20 per 
cent. 

In the case which you have brought to our notice may 
we assume that the cheapest form of edition was pub- 
lished consistently with fair profit to the author and pub- 
lisher? — I think, certainly, with anything like a tolerable 
mode of getting up. Of course you may bring down a 
thing to rubbishing type and straw paper; but I was 
speaking of a presentable book. They are very cheap for 
presentable books. 

That, perhaps, would be one of the evils arising from 
a system of royalty, that you would get extremely bad 
and incorrect editions published of a book, even in the 
first instance? — Very likely. 

Because it would be the publisher's object, if that 
system were thoroughly established, to publish such an 
edition that another publisher could not underbid him 
at the end of the three years; that would be, would it 
not, the general object of the publisher? — Yes. 

In this case I understand you to say that he could 
not, consistently with fair profits to the author and pub- 
lisher, and consistently with its being a properly printed 



56 VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYEIGHT. 

work, without wMcli a work of that kind would be of 
very little value, have published a cheaper edition? — 
He could not. 

And yet he would not have been able to publish such 
an edition if he had run the risk of being underbid? — 
Certainly not. He says — " I confess my idea in propos- 
ing such terms as those of the ^ International Scientific 
Series/ looked forward to a yearly increasing interest in 
scientific literature, and an ever enlarging circle of read- 
ers able to appreciate books of a high class." So he was 
looking for a distant effect. 

I am anxious, as Mr. King is not here, to get your 
own opinion upon that point; do you concur in his 
views? — Yes, certainly. 

(Chairman.) Have you any further reasons for 
thinking that measures of the kind which we have been 
discussing, taken in the interest of cheapening books, 
might end in doing the reverse? — I think there is an- 
other way in which there would be a general operation 
of this system of rival editions, which would have, indi- 
rectly, the effect of raising the prices all round; namely, 
the waste of stock. It would inevitably happen that 
every publisher of an original edition would, from time 
to time, have a rival edition make its appearance before 
his edition was sold. In that case his remnant of an edi- 
tion got up in a relatively expensive style, would either 
have to be not sold at all or sold at a sacrifice. Further, 
it would happen from time to time that two publishers, 
unknown to one another, would issue rival editions, both 
of which would not be demanded; there would therefore 
be a waste of stock. Evidently the system of competing 
with one another in the dark, would continually lead to 
production in excess of demand. What would be the 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 57 

result? If there is an increased percentage of waste 
stock, that has somehow to be paid for, if business is to 
be carried on at all. And as we know that tradesmen 
have to raise their average prices to cover their bad 
debts; so, if publishers find an increase of bad stock they 
must raise their prices to cover the loss on bad stock. 

(Mr. Trollope.) Would not the ordinary laws of 
trade correct such an evil? — This interference with the 
laws of trade would entail an abnormal production of 
waste stock. Under the present system a publisher does 
not publish a cheap edition till the other is gone; but 
under the proposed system, with cheap copies perhaps 
sent from the colonies, there must be waste stock. 

When the system had been in operation for a time 
do you not consider that that evil would correct itself by 
the ordinary laws of trade? We are aware that at first 
the disruption of an existing state of things will create 
much confusion, and such evil as you have described; 
but are you not of opinion that this would rectify itself 
after a time? — I do not see how it could rectify itself, 
if the system of rival editions continued, and operated 
in the way that it is expected to do. But as I have al- 
ready indicated by certain hypothetical remarks, I do 
not think it would continue and operate in that way. I 
say, however, that if rival editions were issued by men 
not knowing each other's doings, there must from time to 
time occur in the business of each publisher loss of stock. 

(Chairman.) From the answer to the last question 
that has been put by Mr. Trollope I gather it to be your 
opinion that the arrangement would be practically in- 
operative so far as the anticipated competition was con- 
cerned? — I think that after a period of perturbation, a 
period of fighting and general disaster in the publishing 



58 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

business, there would arise a tacit understanding among 
publishing houses, which would, in a large degTee, de- 
feat the purpose of the measure; and I say this on the 
strength of definite facts furnished by trade-practices 
in America. These facts I have from the before-named 
American friend, Prof. Youmans, with whom from time 
to time, when over here, I have had to discuss the prob- 
ability of pirated editions of my own books in America. 
My books in America are published by a large house 
there, the Appletons; and they deal with me very fairly 
— pay me as well as American authors are paid. I have 
gathered from Prof. Youmans that the danger of the 
issue of rival editions of my books in America is very 
small; because there exists among the American pub- 
lishing houses, the understanding that when one house 
brings out an English book, other houses will not inter- 
fere: the mere circumstance of having been the first 
to seize upon a book, is held to give a priority, such as 
is tacitly regarded as a monopoly. That condition of 
things has been established through a process of fighting ; 
for when it did at first happen that American houses 
brought out rival editions of the same English book, 
or one edition, rather, after another, that, of course, was 
a declaration of war between the two houses, and im- 
mediately there was retaliation, and it ended in a fight. 
The house attacked revenged itself by issuing, perhaps, 
a still cheaper edition, or by doing the like thing with 
some work subsequently published by the aggressing 
house ; and after bleeding one another in this way for a 
length of time there resulted a treaty of peace, and a 
gradual establishment of this understanding, that they 
would respect each other's priorities. If that is what 
happened in America, when the only claim that a pub- 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 59 

lislier had to tlie exclusive publication of a book was the 
claim established by prior seizing of it, of prior printing, 
much more will it happen here in England, among pub- 
lishers who have paid for their books, or who have en- 
tered into arrangements with authors for half profits, 
or what not. Having ' established certain equitable 
claims to these books they will very much more decidedly 
fight any houses that interfere with them, by issuing 
rival editions. If the men who have ill-founded claims 
fight, still more will the men who have well-founded 
claims fight. Hence, there would occur among the Eng- 
lish publishers, when this system came into operation, 
a period of warfare lasting, probably, for some years, 
and ending in a peace based on the understanding that 
any publisher who had brought out a book would be 
regarded as having an exclusive claim to it, and would 
not be interfered with. The fear of retaliation would 
prevent the issue of the rival editions. 

(Sir Henry Holland.) And therefore would pre- 
vent the publication by a rival publisher of a cheaper 
edition ? — Yes. 

(Chairman.) Then on the grounds that you have ex- 
plained, you think the system would become before long 
wholly inoperative? — E^ot wholly inoperative, I think: 
inoperative for good, not inoperative for evil. In the 
course of this early phase to be passed through, in which 
houses issued rival editions against each other and got 
into the state of warfare, it would happen that the 
weaker would go to the wall: the smaller publishers 
would not be able to stand in the fight with the larger 
publishers, and they would tend to fail. And further, 
although treaties of peace would be eventually reached 
between the more powerful publishers, who would be 



60 VIEWS CONCERNINa COPYRiaHT. 

afraid of each other, and dare not issue rival editions of 
each others books, there would be no such feeling on 
the part of large publishers towards small publishers. If 
a small publisher happened to issue a successful book, 
a larger publisher would have no fear in issuing a rival 
edition of that. Hence, therefore, the tendency would 
be for the small publishers to be ruined from having 
their successful books taken away from them. But that 
w^ould not be the only tendency: there would be a sec- 
ondary tendency working the same way. For after this 
fighting had gone on a year or two, it would become 
notorious among authors that if they published their 
books with small publishers they would be in danger of 
rival editions, in case of success, being issued by large 
publishers ; but that, contrariwise, if they published with 
large publishers they would be in no danger of rival 
editions. Hence they would desert the small publishers; 
and in a double way the small publishers would lose 
their business. We should progress towards a monopoly 
of a few large houses; and the power which such have 
already of dictating terms to authors, would become 
still greater. 

And if I understand you rightly, the power would 
be not only to dictate terms to authors but of price to the 
public? — Yes, they would be able to combine. "When 
you got a small number of publishers, and they could 
agree to a system of terms: the public would be power- 
less against them, and authors would be powerless against 
them. 

Then, in your opinion, is there any way by which 
works could be cheapened by legislative enactment? — 
There is one way, and that a way in principle exactly 
the reverse of that which is contended for in this meas- 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 61 

lire; namely, the extension of copyright. I do not mean 
the extension in time ; I mean the extension in area. On 
this point I am happy to say there appears to be agree- 
ment between the two sides. From the evidence which 
I have read I gather that it is proposed along with this 
limitation of copyright in time to extend copyright in 
area. I do not altogether understand the theory which, 
while it ignores an author's equitable claim to the product 
of his brain-work in respect of duration, insists upon the 
equity of his claim to that product of his brain-work, as 
extending not only to his own nation but to other na- 
tions. However, I am glad to have agreement so far; 
and I hold, along with those who support the proposed 
measure, that the enlargement of the markets by means 
of international copyright would be a very effectual 
means of cheapening books. It would be a more effectual 
means of cheapening the best books. I may refer again 
to this International Scientific Series. One of the means 
by which that series has been made cheap, was, that the 
American publisher and the English publisher, agreed 
to share between them the cost of production, in so far 
as that the American publisher had duplicate stereotype 
plates and paid half the cost of setting up the type. 
I^ow it is clear that if the outlay is diminished by hav- 
ing one cost of composition for two countries instead of 
a cost for each, the book can be issued at a lower rate in 
both countries than it could otherwise be. And that ar- 
rangement which was voluntarily made, under a kind 
of spontaneous copyright, in the case of the International 
Series, would be forced, as it were, upon publishers in 
the case of an established copyright. Consequently there 
would be habitually an economization of the cost of pro- 
duction, by dividing it between the two countries; and 



62 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

hence there would be a lowering of the price. And 
then there is the further fact that this would tell espe- 
cially upon the more serious books. On books of a 
popular kind the chief cost is for paper and print: large 
editions being printed. Therefore it does not so much 
matter in America having to set up the type afresh. 
But in the case of a grave book of which the circulation 
is small, the cost of composition is the main element in 
the cost; and the economization of that cost, by dividing 
it between England and America, would serve- very con- 
siderably to lower the price. 

(J)r. Smith.) Then, if I understand you aright, you 
do not approve of the principle adopted in the Canada 
Act, in the Act passed by the Canadian Legislature of 
1875, confirmed by the Imperial Act, by which it is 
necessary in order to obtain copyright in Canada 
that the works should be set up afresh? — I think that 
it is obviously nothing else than a means of staving 
off the opposition of printers, and a very mischievous 
arrangement. 

Would it not be the fact that if a work could be set 
up once for all in the country, and circulate in the two 
countries, the price of the book would be diminished? 
— Unquestionably. 

(Sir. H. Holland.) You are aware of the difficulties 
that have been raised by the United States publishers, 
that constant attempts have been made ever since 1854 
and before to make a copyright convention, and that 
there is no very great probability of these attempts prov- 
ing successful. Have you any particular suggestion to 
bring before the Commissioners which would in your 
opinion tend towards making the Americans favourable 
to a convention? — I am sorry to say I do not see my way 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 63 

towards any such suggestion. I am merely replying to 
the general question whether legislation could do any- 
thing to cheapen books, and saying that the only thing 
I thought it could do would be to get, in some way, an 
extension of area for copyright. 

The following is the speech referred to above as hav- 
ing been made at a meeting of the National Association 
for the Promotion of Social Science. 

With respect to the duration of copyright, I would 
remark first, that if any reason is to be given for fixing 
a term of years, a good one may be given for the Com- 
missioners proposal; whereas, for the term proposed in 
this bill I see no reason: why fifty rather than sixty or 
forty should be fixed cannot be shown; but it may be 
shown why copyright for life and thirty years after death 
is reasonable. The author is a man carrying on a money- 
getting occupation, and should, if possible, be put in the 
position of feeling that he is doing as well as may be for 
his family, and that he is not by following that occupa- 
tion in place of another sacrificing them. If he is con- 
scious that by pursuing authorship he runs the risk of 
leaving his children without any provision after his 
death, he may be led to think that duty to them should 
make him choose another occupation. But by making 
the duration of copyright for his life and thirty years 
afterwards, he is encouraged by a reasonable belief 
that he will leave means for supporting his family for a 
term sufficient to allow his children to be brought to 
a self-supporting maturity. Let me next refer to an- 
other reason given very clearly by Mr. Westlake for 
preferring a fixed termination of copyright after death, 
rather than a series of terminations of different dates, for 



64 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYEIGHT. 

the works publislied at different dates. It happens that I 
can give personal illustrations of the great inconven- 
iences, and I may say mischiefs, which would arise from 
the termination of an author's copyrights at different 
dates. I was not aware until two days ago, when talk- 
ing to Dr. Smith on this question, that the existing 
cheap edition of Hallam's Middle Ages is an imperfect 
work. I have been making quotations from that work. 
I shall now have to go back on my quotations and see 
if I have been betrayed into errors; and observe, further, 
that but for mere accident I should have been in the pre- 
dicament of, perhaps, having quoted obsolete passages. 
I will give a second illustration, also personal, but in 
another way. In 1862 I published a work entitled First 
Principles. Although the ideas contained in it were true 
as far as they went, they were imperfectly developed 
and were imperfectly organised. That which was pri- 
mary was put as secondary and vice versa. At the end 
of five years I published a second or a re-organised edi- 
tion presenting the doctrine under quite a different 
aspect. ~Now what would happen in this case supposing 
copyrights terminated at the end of fifty years? My 
edition of 1862 would be republished in a cheap form, 
while the re-organized edition was still copyright; and 
for the succeeding 5 years there would be a propagation 
of my erroneous views; and the imperfect edition, fill- 
ing the market, would hinder the spread of the perfect 
edition when subsequently published. In brief I may 
say that this proposal is one which, if carried out, would 
establish a premium on the propagation of error. I pass 
now to the question of colonial reprints. If the clause 
which gives reprinting powers, under certain conditions, 
had been a clause in a bill proposed centuries ago, I 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 65 

sliould not have been surprised; but that such a clause 
should appear in a bill at the present time after the free 
trade doctrines have been established, is to me astound- 
ing. I read in this clause (the Y2nd) — " Whereas it is 
desirable to provide means whereby the inhabitants of 
all British possessions may obtain, at a moderate price, 
a sufficient supply of books . . ." Thus we have ac- 
tually come back to the notion that it is the duty of the 
state to provide the colonies with a supply of a com- 
modity at a moderate price. It is really a reversion to 
the form of legislation which in old times dictated the 
rates of wages, provided for the qualities and quantities 
of goods, entered into factories to inspect processes of 
production, established bounties and restrictions, and so 
forth. For all these things were done with the view of 
obtaining good supplies of commodities at reasonable 
rates. What can possibly be the defence for this revival 
of antique legislation? It is that though the state has 
proved a bad judge in respect of food and clothing, and 
things of daily use, it is likely to be a good judge in re- 
spect of literature? Is it that having failed in the rela- 
tively easy thing, it will succeed in the relatively diffi- 
cult thing? Then, further, what is the particular author- 
ity which it is proposed to constitute the judge? The 
Grovernor of the colony. Who is he? Usually he is a 
general. Is he a fit man to judge whether a certain book 
is adequately supplied in the colony, and whether such 
and such a price is a reasonable one for it? Then what is 
proposed by way of defence for the author? The author 
is to have due notice of the proposed reprint. He may, 
it seems, go personally and make objections; but what 
author will ever go to the colony to oppose ? He may do 
it by his agent; but what agent has the author in a 



66 VIEWS CONCEENING COPYRIGHT. 

colony? He probably knows nobody there. Supposing 
lie could find a fit agent, wbat likelihood is there of the 
cost of such a transaction ever being repaid, even suppos- 
ing he succeeds in his opposition? The cost of the trans- 
action would, probably, be more than the author would 
get for an edition of his work. Practically, therefore, 
the clause involves abolition of copyright in the colony; 
and we have good reasons for suspecting that the pro- 
posed royalty would bring next to nothing. Even sup- 
posing it should turn out that the arrangement worked 
as intended, I should still demur to the assumption that 
the colony would benefit. It continually happens in 
every kind of legislation that the unanticipated results 
immensely exceed in importance the anticipated results. 
AVe may suspect it would be so here. For what would 
be the books which a colonial publisher would be likely 
to reprint? Clearly the books which would repay him. 
What would they be? Why the novels of the day, the 
gossiping biographies, the books which feed the voracious 
appetite for personalities : those would be the books they 
would seize upon for the purpose of reprinting. But the 
books of an instructive kind, the books of small circula- 
tion, would not, in most cases, pay the expenses of their 
republication. But if, while you do not cheapen the in- 
structive books, you do cheapen the amusing books, you 
make it easier for people to satiate their appetites upon 
these and diminish their appetites for the others. If 
those who have daily but a short time for reading can get 
easy access to the one kind of literature, while the access 
to the other kind is difiicult, they will be led to read more 
of the first than they would otherwise do, at the expense 
of the last. The consequence will be not an educating 
influence but an uneducating influence. Before closing. 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 67 

let me say a few words on the general question of copj- 
riglit. There is a current belief, which was expressed 
before the commission, that copyright is an artificial ar- 
rangement — that it is some privilege granted by the state 
to secure the author a monopoly. I hold this to be an er- 
roneous view. If the state will in this matter do what the 
state has to do in all other matters of commerce, namely, 
enforce contracts, copyright comes into existence as a 
matter of course. In all other trading transactions, the 
law recognises contracts, both overt and tacit. It not 
only recognises those in which there has been an agree- 
ment by signature ; it recognises those in which not even 
an oral agreement has been made. If a man goes into 
a shop and asks for a pound of tea or any other com- 
modity, and it is handed over to him, it is not supposed 
to be requisite that he should specify beforehand that he 
will give so much money for it. That is to say, the state 
in these cases recognises the tacit contract to pay a price, 
though this has not been mentioned. What is the tacit 
contract with regard to a book? When the buyer of a 
book goes into a shop and buys from the author's agent, 
what is the contract entered into in the purchase of that 
book? The tacit understanding is that it is sold for the 
purpose of reading, either by the individual or other in- 
dividuals, and for no other purpose. Ask what would 
happen if the purchaser announced that he was about to 
use that book for reprinting. Clearly it would either not 
be sold to him at all, or it would be sold at a relatively 
immense price — a price such as would cover the profit on 
the edition. If, therefore, the law is to enforce tacit con- 
tracts, it is to enforce this tacit contract, that the book 
bought shall be for reading purposes and not for reprint- 
ing purposes; and if it enforces this tacit contract, copy- 



68 VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

riglit results as a consequence. I contend, then, that tlie 
state lias nothing more to do in the matter than to make 
provisions for carrying out this tacit contract in all its 
details. A word as to the cheapening of literature. The 
true way to get cheap books is rigorously to abide by 
copyright as thus resulting, and to extend its area. Such 
extension of copyright as would bring under it a larger 
population, and therefore a larger number of purchasers, 
would make it possible to lower the prices of books; but 
if you narrow the area of the copyright and so dimin- 
ish the number of purchasers of the book, you neces- 
sarily raise its price. This proposed arrangement, by 
which colonists are to have a cheaper book, will, by cut- 
ting off the colonial sale of the English edition, raise the 
price in England. Conversely, if copyright could be ex- 
tended by including the United States, the prices of all 
books might be lowered. Where there is an agreement, 
as there frequently is already, between British and 
American publishers to share the cost of composition and 
stereotyping, the prices charged for books are reduced 
both here and in America. Under an international copy- 
right this exceptional result would become a general 
result. 

In reply to objections there were the following supple- 
mentary remarhs. 

It is rather odd that we should get to the abstract 
question at the end of our discussion, and not at the be- 
ginning. We should have settled the basis at first. I 
now find myself in the position of having to prove that 
copyright is not, as it has been called, a monopoly; and 
to prove that the maintenance of copyright is really free 
trade. I can hardly go into the matter adequately now; 



VIEWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 69 

but I would point out that a monopoly, properly so-called, 
and free trade, properly so-called, have these charac- 
ters. The monopolist is a man who stands in the way 
of some one who, in the natural order of things, would 
be able to carry on some business in his absence just 
as well as in his presence. The free-trader is one who 
needs no aid from the monopolist, but simply wishes to 
do that which he could do did the monopolist not exist. 
But one who, wishing to reprint an author's book, calls 
the author a monopolist for preventing him, stands in a 
widely different position. He proposes not simply to 
use his powers with the aid of such natural resources 
as are open to all. He proposes to use that which would 
not exist but for the author. It is, therefore, an utter 
misuse of the M^ord to call the author's claim a monopoly. 
Moreover, those who so call it show the fallacy of their 
characterization by not daring to act upon it. Free 
trade makes no compromise with monopoly, rightly so- 
called. The free trader is ready to abolish monopoly at 
once, and makes no terms with it — sees no need for fos- 
tering it. Whereas those who take the position that 
copyright is a monopoly are obliged to admit that you 
must allow this so-called monopoly for a time. They 
dare not propose that the moment an author's book is 
published, any one should be allowed to reprint it; and 
they thus prove that they have not the courage of their 
opinions — do not really believe that which they profess 
to believe. On the other hand, I contend, as before, that 
freedom of trade is essentially freedom of contract, and 
that if authors, through their agents, are allowed to 
make what contracts they please with book-buyers, while 
the state stands by and enforces the contracts made, 
copyright necessarily comes into existence. 



70 



A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. 



A EEJOns^DEK TO ME. McLEN:N'A:N'. 

In Part III of the Principles of Sociology, dealing 
with " Domestic Institutions/' I had occasion to criticize 
certain of the views set forth by Mr. McLennan in his 
Primitive Marriage. Sometime after, in two articles in 
The Fortnightly Review, the last of which appeared in 
June, 1877, he replied to my criticisms. To prevent 
prolongation of the controversy, the Editor of The Fort- 
nightly Review sent me a proof of this last article; with 
the result that what I had to say in answer was appended. 
As Mr. McLennan's essays above named have, along 
with others, been put into a permanent form, it seems 
fit that permanence should be given to my response. The 
few pages occupied run as follows: — 



Forms of family produced by descent in the male 
line, are habitually characterized by a law of succession 
which gives the sons of the eldest precedence over his 
brothers. Contrariwise, forms of family in which de- 
scent in the female line persists, wholly or partially, be- 
cause paternity is unsettled or but partially settled, are 
characterized by a law of succession under which broth- 
ers takes precedence of sons. Hence an institution which 
requires a younger brother to beget an heir for an elder 
brother who dies without one, and which thus carries 
to an extreme the claims of sons versus the claims of 
brothers, seems like a result of a family system charac- 



A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. Yl 

terized by establislied descent in the male line. Mr. 
McLennan, however, considers this peculiar institution 
to be derived from a form of family in which, from in- 
definiteness of paternity, male kinship in the descending 
line is imperfectly established. As he interprets the mat- 
ter, cause and consequence stand thus: — " On every 
view, then," he says, " the succession of brothers in 
preference to sons must be accepted as a remainder of 
polyandry '' (p. 705). Nevertheless he represents, as a 
remainder of polyandry, this Levirate system, which 
gives such preference to sons that even the nominal 
son of the eldest brother excludes a younger brother. 

Though Mr. McLennan thinks ^' it is impossible not 
to believe '' that this is the origin of the Levirate (Studies 
in Ancient History, p. 162), I have ventured to suggest 
another possible interpretation. I have shown that where 
women are bought and sold as property, they are also 
inherited as property. I have given six cases where 
widows are inherited by brothers who claim them as well 
as other belongings of the deceased; and have pointed 
out that in two of these instances, the nearest relation 
" had a right " to the widow, in the absence of a brother. 
As further showing how transfers of widows are origi- 
nally transfers of property, I have given six cases in 
which sons inherit their father's wives (save their own 
mothers).* Here let me add other instances having like 
. implications. Speaking of the Kakhyens, Anderson, in 
his Mandalay to Momien (pp. 139 — 142), says, " the 
curious custom obtains that a widow becomes the wife of 
the senior brother-in-law, even though he be already 
married. And Wood tells us of the Kirghiz, that on a 

* Principles of Sociology, i, 680. 



72 A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. 

husband's death the wife goes to his brother, and on his 
decease becomes the property of the next of kin. We 
have, then, multitudinous proofs that the taking to wife 
deceased brothers' widows (not in these cases associated 
Avith polyandry, but with polygyny), is part of the suc- 
cession to property in general; and this was originally 
the case among the Hebrews. The inference which Mr. 
McLennan draws from the ancient tradition concerning 
Tamar, does not correspond with the view which the Rab- 
bins held respecting the original form of the Levir mar- 
riage. As shown by a passage in Lewis {Origines 
Hehroece, ii. 498), the Rabbins saw in Levir marriage, 
essentially a right of the brother, not of the widow. At 
first sight it is not manifest how what was originally a 
right of the brother, became transformed into a duty; 
but I have given some facts which throw light upon the 
transformation. Even among a people so little advanced 
as the Chippewas, the claim of a dead brother's wife as 
property, had so far changed that the assigned reason for 
marrying her was the obligation to take care of the 
brother's children ; and I have cited the case of an Egyp- 
tian who said he married his brother's widow because ^' he 
considered it his duty to provide for her and her chil- 
dren." Following the clue given by these cases, I have 
suggested (op. cit. p. 692) that the duty of raising up 
seed to a dead brother was originally the duty of raising 
the seed the dead brother had left, that is, his children; 
and that this eventually passed by misinterpretation into 
the duty of preserving his line, not by rearing existing 
children, but by begetting a son in his name when he had 
none — a misinterpretation prompted by that intense crav- 
ing to survive in name through future times, described in 
Psalm xlix. 11: — "Their inward thought is that their 



A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. 73 

houses shall continue for ever. . . , They call their 
lands after their own names." When we remember that 
even now, estates are sometimes bequeathed on condition 
of adopting the name of the testator, and so nominally 
maintaining the line, we shall understand the motive 
which exaggerated the duty of raising a brother's heir 
until it became the duty of raising an heir to him. 
Should Mr. McLennan contend that this transformation 
of what was once a beneficial right into an injurious obli- 
gation is improbable, then I make two replies. The first 
is, that among many remarkable social transformations, 
there may be named one immediately relating to mar- 
riage-customs, which presents us with a no less complete 
inversion. Change from wife-purchase to the reception 
of a dowry with a wife, does not seem a change likely to 
result by gradual transition; yet it did so result. The 
property given for the bride, originally appropriated en- 
tirely by the father, ceased in course of time to be wholly 
retained by him, and he gave part to his daughter for her 
special use after her marriage. What he gave to her 
grew, and what was paid for her dwindled, until eventu- 
ally the husband's payment became a symbol, while the 
father's gift developed into a substantial dower. The 
second reply is that this transformation is less difiicult to 
understand than the one alleged by Mr. McLennan. For 
according to him, the arrangement by which, in the poly- 
andric family, an elder brother's death profits the next 
brother by devolving on him " his property, authority, 
and widow," is transformed into an arrangement by 
which, in the polygynic or monogamic family, the next 
brother loses by having to take steps for excluding him- 
self from the succession. 

The flaw in Mr. McLennan's argument appears to me 
6 



Y4 A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. 

to be this. He tacitly assumes that the succession of 
brothers to property, instead of sons, always implies the 
pre-existence of polyandry; whereas it merely implies 
the pre-existence of descent in the female line, which 
may or may not have had polyandry as a concomitant. 
There are hosts of cases where descent in the female line 
exists, and where there is neither polyandry now nor any 
sign of its past existence. 

In the small space available, I must meet Mr. McLen- 
nan's rejoinders to my criticisms on his theory of primi- 
tive marriage, in the briefest manner. He sets forth his 
leading propositions thus: — 

(1.) That '' the form [of capture] represents and is a 
remainder of an actual system of capturing women for 
wives." As showing that the form does not necessarily 
imply capture from foreign tribes, I have pointed out 
that actual capture, and consequently the form of cap- 
ture, may originate within the tribe ; first, from the fight- 
ing of the men with one another for the possession of 
women; second, from the resistance of the pursued 
women themselves, due to coyness, partly real and partly 
assumed; third, from the accompanying resistance of 
sympathizing women; and fourth, from the resistance 
of parents who are deprived of the services of daughters 
by their marriages. I have given numerous examples of 
acts of capture having such origins, and these Mr. Mc- 
Lennan passes over unnoticed. 

(2.) That " a practice of capturing women for wives 
could not have become systematic unless it were devel- 
oped and sustained by some rule of law or custom, which 
made it necessary as a means to marriage. '^ This proposi- 
tion implies that some " rule of law " was first estab- 



A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. Y5 

lished, in some way unspecified, and that capturing 
women became systematic as a consequence; which is 
not a solution of the problem but a postponement of it. 
The assumed pre-existence of such a law seems to me akin 
to the hypothesis of a primitive ^^ social contract." 

(3.) That ^' the rule of law or custom which had this 
effect was exogamy, the law (previously unnamed) which 
declared it incest for a man to marry a woman of the same 
blood or stock with himself.'' On which my comment, 
simply a more specific form of the last, is that we are 
thus required to conclude that the notions of " blood or 
stock " and of ^^ incest " preceded the practice of stealing 
women ; though this practice, found among the very low- 
est men, is a natural sequence of instincts which must 
have been in action before the earliest social groups were 
formed. 

From these general rejoinders I pass to more special 
ones. 

Mr. McLennan says: — "In this inquiry it was the 
existence of exogamy as an essential concomitant of cap- 
ture that concerned me. I neither investigated nor had 
occasion to investigate its origin." Considering that the 
title of Mr. McLennan's work as originally published 
was Primitive Marriage: an Inquiry into the Origin of 
the Form of Capture in Marriage Ceremonies, it seems 
strange that he should say he was not concerned with 
the explanation of exogamy. To ascribe capture to exo- 
gamy and to assign no cause for exogamy, is to give a 
very inadequate theory of primitive marriage. Mr. Mc- 
Lennan, how^ever, while alleging that this problem did 
not concern him, says he threw out the suggestion that 
" practice of female infanticide " originated the correla- 
tive usages of capture and exogamy. I was quite un- 



76 A REJOIKDER TO MR. McLENNAN. 

aware till now that Mr. McLennan laid so little stress 
upon this part of the theory. The title he gives to Chap- 
ter YII. of his work — ^'Exogamy: its Origin/' &:c., 
seems to imply that the explanation of it did concern 
him, though he now says it did not. In this chapter (pp. 
110, 111, new edition), he assigns female infanticide as 
the cause, without any warning that this is to be taken 
merely as a suggestion. And to the growth of the con- 
sequent " usage induced by necessity " of stealing wives, 
he ascribes the '^ prejudice strong as a principle of re- 
ligion . . . against marrying women of their own 
stock," — ascribes, that is, the law of exogamy. I have 
given several reasons for concluding that exogamy did 
not arise from this cause; and, as Mr. McLennan now 
states that what he said about this cause had '^ perhaps 
better have been left unsaid," I presume that he admits 
the validity of these reasons. 

Mr. McLennan makes a counter criticism on the ex- 
planation of exogamy given by me. This explanation is 
that in warlike tribes, capturing of a foreign woman, im- 
plying conquest over enemies, was a mark of bravery and 
therefore honourable; that as a tribe became predomi- 
nantly warlike, the honourableness of having a foreign 
wife became so relatively great, that taking a native 
wife became discreditable; and that finally, in the most 
warlike tribes, it became imperative that a wife should 
be of foreign blood. Mr. McLennan objects that there 
is a gulf " between an act which is discreditable and an 
act which is criminal." 

'^ To me," he says, " it seems simply not possible to 
deduce from marriages with foreign women being 
deemed ever so honourable, that marriages with native 
women should be branded as incestuous — be deemed 



A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. 77 

among the most impious of actions, and become capital 
offences.'' 

My first reply is that though this " seems simply not 
possible '' to Mr. McLennan, he might have found ana- 
logies which would show him its possibility. Is it not 
deemed honourable to conquer in war? Does it not be- 
come by consequence dishonourable to give way in battle 
and flee from the enemy? And are there not cases in 
which the dishonourableness of fleeing from the enemy 
became a penal offence, followed sometimes even by 
death? My second reply is that in the primitive state 
to which we must go back for the explanation of such 
practices as exogamy, no such notion as that of crime 
exists. Mr. McLennan's objection implies the belief 
that moral ideas antecede the earliest social state ; whereas 
they are products of the social state, developing only 
as it advances. What we call crimes are thought credi- 
table by many uncivilized men. Murder was no dis- 
grace to a Fijian, but a glory; and his honour increased 
with the number of men he devoured. Among some 
tribes of the Pacific States, where the stronger man takes 
whatever he pleases from the weaker, the criminality of 
robbery is unrecognised. And by those many peoples 
whom I have instanced (Prin. of Sociology, § 281) as 
very commonly forming incestuous unions, incest is 
not regarded as criminal. How, then, can there be 
the impassable gulf Mr. McLennan supposes between 
the disgracefulness of marrying within the tribe and 
the crime of incest, when, originally, incest was not 
a crime? 

By way of proof that among rude races a man does 
not gain honour from a captured wife, Mr. McLennan 
gives some cases showing that captured wives are not 



78 A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAK 

themselves held in higher estimation than native wives, 
but in lower. I have neither said nor implied anything 
at variance with his facts. To assert the hononrableness 
of capturing is not to assert the hononrableness of being 
captured. 

One objection raised by Mr. McLennan to the ex- 
planation I have given has a considerable appearance of 
validity, and some real validity; though it is an impru- 
dent objection for him to make, since it tells against 
his own view more than against mine. He points out 
that if, in an extremely warlike tribe, wiving with for- 
eigners becomes imperative, and marriage with native- 
born women is disallowed, there arises the question, 
what becomes of the native-born women; and he says 
they must be ^^ doomed to perpetual celibacy.'' In an- 
swer, I may point to the fact alleged by Mr. McLen- 
nan himself (Studies, &c., p. 112), that in some cases 
all the female children born within the tribe are de- 
stroyed, whence it follows that, in these cases at any 
rate, there results no such* difficulty as that which he 
alleges. Further, I have to repeat the objection made 
by me to his hypothesis, that among a cluster of tribes 
practising primitive exogamy, as Mr. McLennan de- 
scribes it, the female children born within each tribe not 
only become useless to the tribe, because unmarriage- 
able by its members, but the rearing of them benefits 
and strengthens hostile tribes, who alone can utilize 
them: whence a motive to universal female infanticide 
throughout the tribes. But the truth to which Mr. Mc- 
Lennan's objection points, I take to be this; that, save 
in such extreme cases as the one I have cited above, 
exogamy, under that primitive form which implies 
actual capture of women from other tribes, does not be- 



A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. Y9 

come absolute; and that it acquires the character of a 
peremptory law, only when the prevalence of women 
counted as foreign by blood within the tribe, introduces 
the secondary or derived form of exogamy, and makes 
obedience to the peremptory law practicable. 

Mr. McLennan alleges that* the explanation I have 
given could account " only for a limited practice of cap- 
turing women for wives," and that for this reason, '^ ap- 
parently," I have formed the opinion that exogamy is 
not normal but exceptional. I do not know why he says 
this; since the explanation I have given implies that 
everywhere, hostilities among tribes tend to produce ex- 
ogamy in some and endogamy in others, and that thus 
the simultaneous genesis of the two is normal. If, how^- 
ever, by the words " that exogamy, properly so-called, 
was normal, is beyond dispute," he means that it was 
normal in the literal sense, as having originally been the 
rule and other practices exceptions — if he means again 
to express the belief he did originally, that exogamy has 
" been practised at a certain stage among every race of 
mankind " — if, by the additional instances of it which 
he now gives, he means to support this proposition ; then 
I have simply to set against it the admission he makes 
(Studies, &C.J p. 116) that exogamy and endogamy " may 
be equally archaic," and the statement that " the sepa- 
rate endogamous are nearly as numerous, and they are 
in some respects as rude, as the separate exogamous 
tribes " (Ihid., p. 116) — an admission and a statement 
which harmonize perfectly with the hypothesis I have set 
forth, but are incongruous with Mr. McLennan's own 
hypothesis. 

I have reserved to the last the most serious of Mr. Mc- 
Lennan's allegations against me. " That Mr. Spencer 



80 A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. 

has failed to grasp the meaning of the terms exogamy 
and endogamy appears beyond dispute/' he says. If this 
be true, the fault must be either in Mr. McLennan's 
statement of his views, or in my capacity for compre- 
hension; and I suppose that in politeness I am bound 
to regard the fault as lying in me. I am reluctant, how- 
ever, to leave the reader without the opportunity of form- 
ing his own judgment on this point; and I therefore 
lay before him the data as briefly as consists with clear- 
ness. 

The question being how there arose the contrast be- 
tween those tribes which married only with women of 
other tribes, or of foreign blood, and those tribes which 
married native women, the words ^' exogamy '^ and " en- 
dogamy," introduced by Mr. McLennan, were used by 
me as indicating these two systems, alike in their partial- 
ly-established and in their completely-established forms. 
Employing the words in these unspecialized senses, I 
have referred to some societies as partially exogamous 
or partially endogamous, and have said that '' exogamy 
and endogamy in many cases co-exist : " meaning, there- 
by, that in so far as the men of a tribe marry out of 
the tribe the tribe is exogamous, and in so far as they 
marry within the tribe the tribe is endogamous. This 
fact is cited by Mr. McLennan as " proof that the prob- 
lem never was comprehended by " me. Giving to the 
words more special meanings than are necessitated by 
their literal significations, Mr. McLennan represents 
them as applicable only where marriage with women 
of the same stock is respectively forbidden or required. 
There cannot, consequently, be such things as partial 
exogamy or endogamy — the two are mutually exclu- 
sive. ^' The words," he says, '' were not defined by me 



A REJOINDER TO MR. McLENNAN. 81 

to denote practices at all, but rules or laws; " and lie 
says that until there is actual prohibition of one or other, 
there is no law of marriage at all, and therefore no ex- 
ogamy or endogamy. 

]S"ow Mr. McLennan may, of course, give what de- 
finitions he pleases to words introduced by himself. But 
I am at loss to understand how an evolutionist, which 
Mr. McLennan declares himself to be, can ignore those 
antecedent stages that must have been passed through 
before exogamy and endogamy could become laws. Mr. 
McLennan's familiarity with savage life must make him 
fully conscious that law, in our sense, is originally un- 
known; and that that genesis of laws out of customs 
which advanced societies show us, is implied by the state 
of the earliest societies in which no customs have yet 
evolved into laws. An evolutionist might be expected 
to regard it as a necessary implication that before exog- 
amy and endogamy became laws they must have been 
practices. 

If, instead of saying that I " never comprehended the 
meanings of the terms exogamy or endogamy," Mr. 
McLennan had said that I failed to comprehend how he 
reconciles his own uses of them with the meanings he 
gives, I should have agreed with him. On p. 230 in the 
chapter headed " Conclusion," (not, be it observed, in 
the chapter which he describes as ^' preliminary," and 
therefore only approximate in its statements) I find the 
following passage, in which I have italicised the signi- 
ficant words: 

" On the whole, the account which we have given of 
the origin of exogamy appears the only one which will 
bear examination. The scarcity of women within the 
group led to a practice of stealing the women of other 



82 PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION; 

groups, and in time it came to he considered improper, 
because it was unusual for a man to niarrj a woman of 
liis own group.'' 

This passage, summing up the results of Mr. McLen- 
nan' s inquiries, while it tacitly asserts that " the origin 
of exogamy " was a chief problem (though Mr. McLen- 
nan now sajs it did not concern him), applies the name 
exogamy to a practice that had not yet become a law. 
Even now, on the first page of the above article, he uses 
it in the same sense when he speaks of his original sug- 
gestion thus — " the practice of capture somehow intro- 
ducing exogamy, and exogamy thereafter perpetuating 
and extending the practice of capture." If, then, be- 
cause I have applied the name exogamy to a growing 
custom that had not yet hardened into a law, I am 
charged with not understanding what exogamy means, 
I have simply to reply that the charge recoils with fatal 
effect on Mr. McLennan himself; since he uses the word 
in the same sense. 



PKOF. TAIT OX THE EOEMTLA OF 
EYOLUTIOX. 

It would be undesirable to give permanence to the 
subjoined communication, published in Nature for Dec. 
2, 1880, were it not that it serves as a text for some re- 
marks on scientific culture and the perverting influences 
caused by limitation of it to special sciences. 

Initiated by a criticism of First Principles in the 
British Quarterly Review for October, 1873, there grew 



PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 83 

up a controversy carried on partly in pamphlets which 
I published and partly in the columns of Nature. In the 
course of it Prof. Tait, who, as a high authority, was 
quoted against me, became implicated and himself event- 
ually entered the lists. Some time afterwards he uttered 
from his professorial chair at Edinburgh an address con- 
demnatory of my views. It was published in Nature 
for Nov. 25, 1880, and drew from me the reply here re- 
produced. 

Usually my polemical writings have, I believe, been 
considered as duly regardful of the feelings of antagon- 
ists. If an exception is here furnished, my excuse must 
be that I was, perhaps improperly, influenced by the 
example of Prof. Tait, who, repeating a comparison he 
made once before, told his students that — " When the 
purposely vague statements of the materialists and ag- 
nostics are thus stripped of the tinsel of highflown and 
unintelligible language, the eyes of the thoughtless who 
have accepted them on authority (!) are at last opened, 
and they are ready to exclaim with Titania ' Methinks I 
was enamour'd of an ass'." 

When, in Nature for July 17th, 1879, while review- 
ing Sir Edmund Beckett's book. Prof. Tait lugged in 
Mr. Kirkman's travesty of the definition of Evolution, 
most readers probably failed to see why he made this 
not very relevant quotation. But those who remembered 
a controversy which occurred some years previously, pos- 
sibly divined the feeling which prompted him thus to go 
out of his way. 



84 PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 

At the time I said nothing; but having recently had 
to prepare a new edition of Fii^st Principles, and think- 
ing it well to take some notice of books, and parts of 
books, that have been written in refutation of that work, 
I decided to deal also with Mr. Kirkman's implied cri- 
ticism, in which Prof. Tait so heartily concurred; and 
by way of gauging Prof. Tait's judgment on this matter, 
I thought it not amiss to give some samples of his judg- 
ment on matters falling within his own department. To 
make it accessible to those possessing previous- editions 
of First Principles, the Appendix containing these re- 
plies to critics was published as a pamphlet. 

In the inaugural lecture of this session, recently given 
to his students, part of which is published in the last 
number of Nature, Prof. Tait first of all recalls a pas- 
sage from the preceding controversy. From this he 
quotes, or rather describes, a clause which, standing by 
itself, appears sufficiently absurd; and he marks the ab- 
surdity by a double note of admiration. Whether when 
taken with its context it is absurd, the reader will 
be able to judge on reading the passage to which it 
belongs. 

In disproof of certain conclusions of mine, there had 
been quoted against me the dictum of Prof. Tait con- 
cerning the laws of motion, which is that — '^ as the prop- 
erties of matter might have been such as to render a 
totally different set of laws axiomatic, these laws must 
be considered as resting on convictions drawn from ob- 
servation and ex:periment and not on intuitive percep- 
tion." ITot urging minor objections to this dictum, I 
went on to say: — " It will suffice if I examine the nature 
of this proposition that ^ the properties of matter might 
have been ' other than they are. Does it express an ex- 



PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 85 

perimentally-ascertained trutli? If so, I invite Prof. 
Tait to describe the experiments? Is it an intuition? If 
so, then along with doubt of an intuitive belief concern- 
ing things as they are, there goes confidence in an in- 
tuitive belief concerning things as they are not. Is it an 
hypothesis? If so, the implication is that a cognition of 
which the negation is inconceivable (for an axiom is 
such) may be discredited by inference from that which 
is not a cognition at all, but simply a supposition. . . . 
I shall take it as unquestionable that nothing concluded 
can have a warrant higher than that from which it is 
concluded, though it may have a lower. E'ow the ele- 
ments of the proposition before us are these : — As ' the 
properties of matter might have been such as to render a 
totally different set of laws axiomatic ' ^therefore'] ^ these 
laws [now in force] must be considered as resting . . . 
not on intuitive perception: ' that is, the intuitions in 
which these laws are recognised, must not be held au- 
thoritative. Here the cognition posited as premiss, is 
that the properties of matter might have been other than 
they are; and the conclusion is that our intuitions rela- 
tive to existing properties are uncertain. Hence, if this 
conclusion is valid, it is valid because the cognition or 
intuition respecting what might have been, is more trust- 
worthy than the cognition or intuition respecting what 
is!" 

From which it is manifest that, when asking (of 
course ironically) whether this alleged truth was an ex- 
perimentally-ascertained one, my purpose was partly to 
enumerate and test all imaginable suppositions respect- 
ing the nature of Prof. Tait's proposition, and partly to 
show that he had affirmed something concerning the 
properties of matter which cannot be experimentally 



86 PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 

verified, and therefore wMcli, by his own showing, he 
has no right to affirm. 

The first example which, in my recent replies to 
criticisms, I have given of Prof. Tait's way of thinking, 
is disclosed by a comparison of his views concerning our 
knowledge of the universe as visible to us, and our 
knowledge of an alleged invisible universe. This com- 
parison shows that: — 

'' He thinks that while no validity can be claimed 
for our judgments respecting perceived forces^ save as 
experimentally justified, some validity can be claimed 
for our judgments respecting unperceived forces, where 
no experimental justification is possible." 

Part of Prof. Tait's answer is that " the theory there 
developed [in the Unseen Universe~\ was not put for- 
ward as probable, its purpose was attained when it was 
shown to be conceivable." To which I rejoin that 
whereas Prof. Tait said he found in this theory a sup- 
port for certain theological beliefs, he now confesses that 
he found none; for if no probability is alleged, no sup- 
port can be derived. The other part of his answer con- 
cerns the main issue. After pointing out that the argu- 
ment of this work, " carried on in pursuance of physical 
laws established by converse with the universe we know, 
extends them to the universe we do not know," I had 
urged that if we have " no warrant for asserting a phys- 
ical axiom save as a generalisation of results of experi- 
ments — if, consequently, where no observation or experi- 
ment is possible, reasoning after physical methods can 
have no place; then there can be no basis for any con- 
clusion respecting the physical relations of the seen and 
the unseen universes," " since, by the definition of it, 
one term of the relation is absent." Prof. Tait's ex- 



PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 87 

planation is extremely startling. When following the 
discussion in the Unseen Universe, throughout which 
the law of the Conservation of Energy and the Principle 
of Continuity are extended from the tangible and visible 
matter and motion around us to an unknown form of 
existence with which they are supposed to be connected, 
readers little thought that Prof. Tait meant by this un- 
known form of existence his own mind. Yet this is all 
that he now names as the missing term of the relation 
between the seen universe and the unseen universe. 

The second sample which I gave of Prof. Tait's views 
on matters pertaining to his own subject, concerned the 
nature of inertia, which he describes by implication as 
a positive force. Here I quoted Prof. Clerk Maxwell. 
To repeat his criticism in full would cause me to tres- 
pass on the pages of Nature even more unduly than I 
must do. If, however, any reader turns to Nature, July 
3rd, 1879, and reads the passage in question, he will be 
able to judge whether it is, or is not, a joke, and if a 
joke, at whose expense. Meanwhile, the essential ques- 
tion remains. Prof. Tait says that matter has " an in- 
nate power of resisting external influences." I, con- 
trariwise, say that the assertion of such a power is at 
variance with established physical principles. 

One further illustration of Prof. Tait's way of think- 
ing was added. Quoting from a lecture given by him at 
Glasgow, for the purpose of dispelling ^^ the widespread 
ignorance as to some of the most important elementary 
principles of physics," I compared two different defini- 
tions of force it contained. In a passage from I^ewton, 
emphatically approved by Prof. Tait, force is implied 
to be that which changes the state of a body, or, in mod- 
ern language, does work upon it. Later on in the lee- 



88 PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 

ture, Prof. Tait says — " force is tlie rate at wliicli an 
agent does work per unit of length." I contended that 
these definitions are irreconcilable with one another; 
and I do not see that Prof. Tait has done anything to 
reconcile them. True, he has given us some mathe- 
matics, by which he considers the reconciliation to be 
effected; and, possibly, some readers, awed by his equa- 
tions, and forgetting that in symbolic operations, carried 
on no matter how rigourously, the worth of what comes 
out depends wholly on what is put in, will suppose that 
Prof. Tait must be right. If, however, his mathematics 
prove that while force is an agent which does work, it is 
also the rate at which an agent does work, then I say — 
so much the worse for his mathematics. 

From these several tests of Prof. Tait's judgment, 
in respect to which I fail to see that he has disposed of 
my allegations, I pass now to his implied judgment on 
the formula, or definition, of Evolution. And here I 
have, first to ask him some questions. He says that be- 
cause he has used the word " definition '' instead of 
" formula," he has incurred my " sore displeasure and 
grave censure." In what place have I expressed or im- 
plied displeasure or censure in relation to this substitu- 
tion of terms? Alleging that I have an obvious motive 
for calling it a " formula," he says I am " indignant at 
its being called a definition.''^ I wish to see the words 
in which I have expressed my indignation; and shall be 
glad if Prof. Tait will quote them. He says — ■'' It seems 
I should have called him the discoverer of the formula! " 
instead of '' the inventor of the definition." ^ill he 
oblige me by pointing out where I have used either the 
one phrase or the other? These assertions of Prof. Tait 
are to me utterly incomprehensible. I have nowhere 



PKOF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 89 

eitlier said or implied any of the things which he here 
specifies. So far am I from consciously preferring one 
of these words to the otherj that, until I read this pas- 
sage in Prof. Tait's lecture, I did not even know that 
I was in the habit of saying " formula " rather than 
" definition.'' The whole of these statements are fic- 
tions, pure and absolute. 

My intentional use of the one word rather than the 
other, is alleged by him a propos of an incidental com- 
parison I have made. To a critic who had said that the 
formula or definition of Evolution " seems at best rather 
the blank form for a universe than anything correspond- 
ing to the actual world about us," I had replied that it 
might similarly be " remarked that the formula — ' bodies 
attract one another directly as their masses and inversely 
as the squares of their distances,' was at best but a blank 
form for solar systems and sidereal clusters." Where- 
upon Prof. Tait assumes that I put the " Formula of 
Evolution alongside of the Law of Gravitation," in re- 
spect to the definiteness of the previsions they severally 
enable us to make; and he proceeds to twit me with in- 
ability to predict what will be the condition of Europe 
four years hence, as astronomers " predict the positions 
of known celestial bodies four years beforehand." Here 
we have another example of Prof. Tait's peculiarity of 
thought. Because two abstract generalisations are com- 
pared as both being utterly unlike the groups of con- 
crete facts interpreted by them, therefore they are com- 
pared in respect to their other characters. 

But now I am not unwilling to deal with the contrast 
Prof. Tait draws; and am prepared to show that when 
the conditions are analogous, the contrast disappears. It 
seems strange that I should have to point out to a scien- 



90 PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 

tific man in his position, that an alleged law may be 
perfectly true, and that yet, where the elements of a 
problem to be dealt with under it are numerous, no spe- 
cific deduction can be drawn. Does not Prof. Tait from 
time to time teach his students that in proportion as the 
number of factors concerned in the production of any 
phenomenon becomes great, and also in proportion as 
those factors admit of less exact measurement, any pre- 
diction made concerning the phenomenon becomes less 
definite; and that where the factors are multitudinous 
and not measurable, nothing but some general I'esult can 
be foreseen, and often not even that ? Prof. Tait ignores 
the fact that the positions of planets and satellites admit 
of definite prevision, only because the forces which ap- 
preciably affect them are few; and he ignores the fact 
that where further such forces, not easily measured, come 
into play, the previsions are imperfect and often wholly 
wrong, as in the case of comets; and he ignores the fact 
that where the number of bodies affecting one another 
by mutual gravitation is great, no definite prevision of 
their positions is possible. If Prof. Tait were living in 
one of the globular star-clusters, does he think that after 
observations duly taken, calculations based on the law 
of gravitation would enable him to predict the positions 
of the component stars four years hence? By an intel- 
ligence immeasurably transcending the human, with a 
mathematics to match, such prevision would doubtless 
be possible; but considered from the human standpoint, 
the law of gravitation even when uncomplicated by other 
laws, can yield under such conditions only general and 
not special results. And if Prof. Tait will deign to look 
into First Principles, which he apparently prides him- 
self on not having done, he will there find a sufficient 



PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 91 

immber of illustrations showing that not only orders 
of changes, but even social changes, are predictable in 
respect to their general, if not in respect to their special, 
characters. 

There remains only to notice the opinion which Prof. 
Tait seems still to hold, that the verbal transformation 
which Mr. Kirkman has made in the formula or defini- 
tion of Evolution, suffices to show its hollo wness. Here 
I may be excused for repeating what I have already said 
elsewhere, namely, that " We may conveniently observe 
the nature of Mr. Kirkman's belief, by listening to an 
imaginary addition to that address before the Literary 
and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, in which he first 
set forth the leading ideas of his volume; and we may 
fitly, in this imaginary addition, adopt the manner in 
which he delights. 

" Observe, gentlemen," we may suppose him saying, 
^^ I have here the yolk of an egg. The evolutionists, 
using their jargon, say that one of its characters is 
^ homogeneity ' ; and if you do not examine your 
thoughts, perhaps you may think that the word conveys 
some idea. But now if I translate it into plain English, 
and say that one of the characters of this yolk is ' all- 
alikeness,' you at once perceive how nonsensical is their 
statement. You see that the substance of the yolk is not 
all-alike, and that therefore all-alikeness cannot be one 
of its attributes. Similarly with the other pretentious 
term ^ heterogeneity,' which, according to them, de- 
scribes the state things are brought to by what they 
call evolution. It is mere empty sound, as is manifest 
if I do but transform it, as I did the other, and say in- 
stead ' not-all-alikeness.' For on showing you this chick 
into which the yolk of the egg turns, you will see that 



92 PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 

^ not-all-alikeness ' is a character which cannot be claimed 
for it. l^ow can any one say that the parts of the chick 
are not-all-alike? Again, in their blatant language we 
are told that evolution is carried on by continuous ' dif- 
ferentiations ' ; and they would have us believe that this 
word expresses some fact. But if we put instead of it 
^ somethingelseifications ' the delusion they try to prac- 
tise on us becomes clear. How can they say that while 
the parts have been forming themselves the heart has 
been becoming something else than the stomach, and 
the leg something else than the wing, and the head some- 
thing else than the tail? The like manifestly happens 
when for ' integrations ' we read ' sticktogetherations ' ; 
what sense the term might seem to have, becomes obvious 
nonsense when the substituted word is used. For no- 
body dares assert that the parts of the chick stick to- 
gether any more than do the parts of the yolk. I need 
hardly show you that now when I take a portion of the 
yolk between my fingers and pull, and now when I take 
any part of the chick, as the leg, and pull, the first re- 
sists just as much as the last — the last does not stick to- 
gether any more than the first; so that there has been 
no progress in ' sticktogetherations.' And thus, gentle- 
men, you perceive that these big words which, to the 
disgrace of the Royal Society, appear even in papers 
published by it, are mere empty bladders which these 
would-be philosophers use to buoy up their ridiculous 
doctrines." 

But though it is here, I think, made apparent enough 
that even when disguised in Mr. Kirkman's gTotesque 
words, the definition of Evolution continues truly to ex- 
press the facts, Prof. Tait shows no sign of changing 
his original opinion that Mr. Kirkman has made '" an 



PEOF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 93 

exquisite translation '' of the definition, ^ay, so ctiarmed 
does he appear to be with Mr. Kirkman's feats of this 
nature, that he gives us another of them. One of two 
conclusions must be drawn. Prof. Tait either thinks 
that fallacies are disclosed by the aid of these cacophon- 
ous long words, or else the clatter of curious syllabic 
compounds greatly excites his sense of humour. In the 
last case we may infer that had he been one of that 
^' Twelfth Mght " party in which the Clown exclaims — 
" I did impeticos thy gratillity,'' he would have joined 
in Sir Andrew Aguecheek's applause. 

In his essay on " The Study of Mathematics as an 
Exercise of the Mind," Sir William Hamilton insisted 
with great force upon the unfitness of mathematically- 
disciplined men for contingent reasoning: giving proof 
that " a too exclusive study of these sciences is, abso- 
lutely, to disqualify the mind for observation and com- 
mon reasoning.'' In support of this thesis he marshalled 
numerous high authorities, including, along with vari- 
ous distinguished non-mathematicians, the mathema- 
ticians themselves — Pascal, Descartes, D'Alembert, and 
others. To earlier examples of mental defects produced, 
which might be given, a conspicuous addition has been 
supplied recently: that furnished by M. Michel Chasles, 
who, in the matter of the Newton-Pascal forgeries, sur- 
prised both the scientific world and the world at large 
by his extreme inability to judge of evidence and detect 
imposture. Personal experience has yielded verification. 
Observation of one much devoted to geometry forced on 



94: PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION^. 

me the conclusion that a prevailing fault in general rea- 
soning had been produced in him. Such a result is not 
to be wondered at. The mathematician does not deal 
with many indefinite data, but with a few definite ones. 
In his operations there occurs no collecting of evidence: 
his successive inferences are inevitable implications. 
Balancing of probabilities is never thought of: his de- 
ductions are necessary and unqualified. The mode of 
thought generated affects his reasoning about other 
matters than the mathematical and the mathematico- 
physicaL Assuming simplicity and definiteness of data 
where these do not exist, he draws conclusions which, 
as being drawn mathematically, he thinks unquestion- 
able. A distinguished mathematician and physicist now 
living has more than once illustrated this truth. 

A further mental effect is produced. The habit of 
dealing with conclusions from data that are few and 
exact, appears to entail an inability to recognize the con- 
clusions drawn from inexact and complex data as con- 
stituting parts of scientific knowledge. In the minds of 
those thus characterized science exists as a multitude 
of separate demonstrated propositions; and it never 
occurs to them that in the order of Xature these must 
be parts of a whole. The merging of them in some uni- 
versal truth is an idea so alien that the very terms re- 
quired seem meaningless, and the man who uses them a 
charlatan. If, referring to an architect, a mason should 
say — " He a builder! Why he never dressed a stone in 
his life! " he would betray a feeling not altogether dis- 



PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 95 

similar. Already in the appendix to First Principles 
above referred to, I have pointed out how some men of 
letters and some mathematicians, alike in having minds 
insufficiently supplied with the materials out of which 
the conception of Evolution is to be framed, regard the 
definition of Evolution as a combination of empty words : 
Prof. Tait and Mr. Kirkman being named in illustra- 
tion. And I ought to have there added the illustration 
furnished by a Senior Wrangler who reviewed First 
Principles in the British Quarterly Review for October 
1873, and with whom I subsequently carried on a con- 
troversy. 

Since then two further illustrations have come to my 
knowledge. One is contained in the Life of the late Dr. 
Romanes. Writing to Mr. Darwin in 1880, and return- 
ing some letters, he says: — 

" The latter convey exactly the criticism that I 
should have expected from — , for while writing my 
essay on Theism I had several conversations with him 
upon the subject of Spencer's writings, and so know 
exactly what he thinks of them. But in none of these 
conversations could I get at anything more definite than 
is conveyed by the returned letters. In no point of any 
importance did he make it clear to me that Spencer was 
wrong, and the only result of our conversation was to 
show me that in — 's opinion it was only my ignorance 
of mathematics that prevented me from seeing that 
Mr. Spencer is merely a ^ word philosopher ' . . .'' (pp. 
95—6). 

The other illustration, of somewhat earlier date, will 
be found in the EdinhurgJi Review for January 1884. 



96 PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 

The writer of it was among the wranglers of his year. 
His characterization of First Principles runs as fol- 
lows: — "This is nothing but a philosophy of epithets 
and phrases, introduced and carried on with an un- 
rivalled solemnity and affection of precision of style, 
concealing the loosest reasoning and the haziest indefi- 
niteness." ^ 

This instancing of five men, occupied with mathe- 
matics and mathematical physics, in whose n^inds the 
formula of Evolution raised no answering conception, 
may be thought to imply an undervaluation, if not even 
a reprobation, of mathematics and physics as subjects 
of study. ITo inference could be more erroneous. To 
guard against it, however, let me point out that while 
exclusive devotion to the exact sciences produces certain 
defects of thought, exclusive devotion to the inexact 
sciences produces defects of thought of an opposite kind. 
These last present phenomena under such complex forms, 
with interdependencies so involved, that necessities of 
relation cannot in most cases be said to exist; and the 
many causes simultaneously in operation so obscure the 
action of any one, as in large measure to exclude the 
idea of definite causation. Among plants a few funda- 



* Some amusement was caused by the mode in whicli I dealt with 
this sweeping condemnation. It appeared just before the sixth edi- 
tion of First Principles was issued. In pursuance of my directions, 
Messrs. Williams and Norgate, when sending out advertisements of 
this new edition, appended to each of them the above sentences, as 
expressing the opinion of the Udinhurgh Bevieiv. The advertise- 
ments were published in all the leading daily and weekly papers. 



PROF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 97 

mental relations may be fairjy alleged, as between the 
monocotyledonous germination and the endogenous 
mode of growth, or between the dicotyledonous germina- 
tion and the exogenous mode of growth. But relations 
among multitudinous cgmbined traits, such as kind of 
fructification and possession of thorns, or hard-shelled 
nuts and shapes of leaves, cannot be shown to have any 
causal characters. So with animals. Though it is a 
trait of creatures having mammae to have seven cervical 
vertebrae, yet for this correlation of structures no neces- 
sity can be alleged; as is proved by the fact that though 
at one time the connexion was supposed to be universal, 
there have of late years been discovered mammals hav- 
ing eight vertebrae in the neck. Hence, those who ex- 
clusively study animals and plants, being perpetually 
impressed by connexions of facts which are either for- 
tuitous or for which no reason can be assigned, are not 
daily habituated to the perception of causal relations, 
and such generalizations as they can establish come to 
be regarded as empirical. A purely inductive habit is 
encouraged and a deductive habit discouraged. The 
resulting mental tendencies operate in other regions of 
thought, so that everywhere necessity of relation is 
doubted, and the idea of inevitable consequence meets 
with no acceptance. Many times in a distinguished biol- 
ogist I have observed the effect thus described. Present 
him with a great accumulation of evidence supporting 
a certain conclusion, and this conclusion, coming before 
him under the form of an induction, he would entertain 



98 PIIOF. TAIT ON THE FORMULA OF EVOLUTION. 

and seem ready to accept. After a time point out that 
this conclusion might be reached deductively from 
known necessary truths, and immediately his scepticism 
was aroused. Forgetting the inductive basis originally 
assigned, the deductive proof excited such repugnance 
as tended to make him reject what he before admitted. 
The habit of mind encouraged by dealing exclusively 
with empirical generahzations produced an abnormal 
distrust of all others. 

Is it then that ability to form balanced judgments 
about things at large demands discipline in all the sci- 
ences? The answer is Yes and Xo. And here presents 
itself a question often raised and never settled — Is it 
better to have an extensive or fairly complete knowledge 
of a single science, or a general acquaintance with all 
the sciences? The tacit implication is that the choice 
is between restriction with accuracy and breadth with 
superficiality. But this is not true. The error lies in 
supposing that a general knowledge is the same thing 
as a superficial knowledge. There may be full compre- 
hension of the essentials of a science without familiarity 
with its details — a clear understanding of those funda- 
mental truths from which all the multitudinous minor 
truths constituting it are deductions. Take the case of 
mechanics. In a moderate time a student may master 
its cardinal ideas — the composition and resolution of 
forces; the general principle of inertia; the laws of mo- 
tion, including acceleration and retardation and the 
various compoundings of motions, studied in connexion 



ABILITY VERSUS INFORMATION. 99 

with tlie conservation of energy; the doctrine of stable 
and unstable equilibrium, with the relations of statics 
and dynamics; and may add to these the theorems con- 
cerning the mechanical powers. The abstract truths 
comprehended under these heads having been severally 
brought home in connexion with some concrete applica- 
tions, an adequate grasp of mechanical principles is ob- 
tained, which, though only general, is not superficial; 
and which gives the power intelligently to appreciate 
the higher and more complex conclusions of the science 
when upon occasion they are presented. Kindred courses 
may similarly bring within the student's clear compre- 
hension the fundamentals of all the sciences ; and he will 
then be in a condition for devoting himself efficiently to 
the science he prefers. Alike for the sake of knowledge 
and for the sake of discipline the ideal course of culture 
is — the ground truths of each science joined with mas- 
tery of one. 



ABILITY VER8U8 INFOKMATION. 

Among my papers I find in print the following letter 
written to Dr. (now Sir) Henry Acland. Under what 
circumstances it was written I do not know; nor can I 
remember in what shape it was published. Probably it 
formed part of some collection of opinions respecting 
University Education, issued in 1882: the date of it 
being March 4 of that year. I give it a place here as 



100 ABILITY VERSUS INFORMATION. 

expressing a strong conviction of mine concerning tlie 
quality of ordinary intellectual culture. 

I am just now allowing myself, very imprudently, 
to be drawn away from my usual line of work, and am 
therefore the less able to consider at length the matter 
to which your letter of the 2nd draws my attention. 
Moreover, I feel that even had I any amount of energy 
to spare, my opinion upon the details of the proposed 
forms of examination would not be of much value. 

There is only one general criticism which 1 feel in- 
clined to make upon the examination papers you have 
forwarded — a criticism to which I think they are open 
in common with examination papers at large. They are 
drawn up with the exclusive view of testing acquisition 
rather than 'power. I hold that the more important thing 
to be ascertained by an examination is not the quantity 
of knowledge which a man has taken in and is able to 
pour out again, but the ability he shows to use the 
knowledge he has acquired; and I think that examina- 
tions of all kinds are habitually faulty, inasmuch as they 
use the first test rather than the last, by which to judge 
of superiority. 

I hold that in every examination there should be a 
certain set of questions devised for the purpose of ascer- 
taining what capacity for original thinking the candi- 
date has — questions to which he will find no answer in 
the books that he has read, but to which answers must 
be elaborated by himself from refiection upon the knowl- 
edge he has acquired. To give an example of what I 
mean, there might be put to biological students in the 
physiological part of their examination such a question 
as — What are the other characteristics of the Aloe which 



BOOK-DISTRIBUTION. 101 

are related to tlie long delay in its flowering, and whicli 
make this delay profitable to the species? If some few 
questions of this kind, for which the student was wholly 
unprepared, were included in every examination, they 
w^ould serve to single out the few men who were some- 
thing more than mere passive recipients of book knowl- 
edge and professorial teaching. 



BOOK-DISTEIBUTION. 

When the late Mr. Tawcett was Postmaster-General 
I wrote to him a letter suggesting a system which would, 
it seemed to me, greatly facilitate (and therefore 
cheapen) the process of conveying books from publish- 
ers to readers. E^othing came of my proposal: the ex- 
isting facilities were held sufficient. I think it well, 
however, to give permanence to the suggestion, hoping 
that some future Postmaster-General may take a differ- 
ent view. The date of the letter was June 5, 1882. 

Thanks for your note some time since received, and 
for the copy of the Postal Guide drawing my attention 
to the postal order system. The unsatisfactoriness of 
this for the purpose I have in view is both that it in- 
volves a small tax and entails a considerable amount of 
clerical labour. 

Within these last few days I have hit upon a device 
which, it seems to me, solves the problem satisfactorily; 
and on discussing the matter with Dr. William Smith, 
whose wide experience as a publisher of dictionaries 



102 BOOK-DISTRIBUTION. 

makes him a good judge of the commerce of literature, 
he agrees with me that it is practicable, and that im- 
mense benefits might be achieved by adopting it. I in- 
close a postcard showing the plan I propose. It is a sup- 
posed order for a book of mj own. On the face it is, of 
•course, addressed to the publisher. On the back the 
purchaser who wishes to have the book sent to him 
writes, as shown, the order, mth his name and address. 
Below he affixes postage-stamps to the amount of the 
price: the space allowed being ample for the gTeat ma- 
jority of books if shilling stamps are used. He then 
scribbles over the affixed stamps so as to erase them and 
make them unavailable even should thev be detached. 
All these acts he may, if he please, go through at the 
post-office where he may purchase both the postcard and 
the stamps; and write what he has to say at the counter 
where postal-orders, etc. are drawn. He then posts the 
card ; and it goes along with other letters and cards, and 
is delivered to the publisher of the book. The publisher 
addresses the required book to him (and were the system 
established he would have a whole stock of copies 
wrapped up and stamped ready for addressing); and he 
does the like with numerous other orders for other books. 
One of his clerks then takes the postcards, perhaps 50 
to 100, received that morning, writes down from each 
the amount it bears in stamps, and adds up the column 
of all these values, ascertaining the total due from the 
post-office. The clerk then takes the publisher's stamp, 
bearing the name of the firm, and impresses it on each of 
the cards, showing that it has passed through the pub- 
lisher's establishment. Then at the same time that he 
sends his messenger with the books to the post-office, the 
publisher also sends all these cards and list of their values 



BOOK-DISTRIBUTION. 103 

to be handed in to tlie post-office clerk, wlio checks tlie 
list by the cards and having also checked the addition, 
gives it to some superior official to write out a cheque 
for the amount payable to the publisher. 

The advantages achieved are these: — 

1st. The book-purchaser, even if he goes himself to 
the post-office, has to go through no appreciably greater 
trouble than if he went to his retail bookseller and 
ordered the book; and if he has in his house postcards 
and stamps to the amount required, less trouble is en- 
tailed upon him; since he may send the postcard by his 
servant along with other letters to the post-office. 

2nd. N^either by the servant of the purchaser, nor by 
a post-office clerk, nor by a letter-carrier can the stamps 
sent in payment be utilized, even if they could be de- 
tached by steaming or otherwise in such a manner as to 
be undamaged; for, being erased, they would be un- 
available by anybody else. Being erased in the way 
shown they are of value only to the publisher to whom 
the card is addressed. 

3rd. At the post-office where the card is posted no 
more trouble is entailed by it than by an ordinary letter; 
and the profit of the post-office in sending the order is 
provided for as it is in an ordinary letter or card. 

4th. As the postcard thus bearing these stamps has 
to be stamped by the publisher to whom it is addressed 
before it can be exchanged at the post-office for its 
value, it is rendered unavailable by anyone else into 
whose hands it goes. The letter-carrier, even if dishon- 
est, can make no use of it, seeing that he cannot get the 
use of the publisher's stamp. Only by forging the pub- 
lisher's stamp would the card be rendered available by 
him; and then the danger of detection would be so great 



104 BOOK-DISTRIBUTION". 

that the thing could not be done. In the first place, the 
publisher's ordinary messenger being known at the post- 
office, the presentation of cards by anyone else would at 
once draw attention; and, in the second place, any such 
considerable abstraction of cards from those which daily 
came to the publisher as would be required to make the 
robbery worth while, would at once raise inquiry; since 
there would come in a few days letters to the publisher 
from those who had not received the books ordered, and 
a hue and cry would be raised. Forging the publisher's 
stamp, which could be the only mode of theft, would thus 
be extremely rare, if it ever occurred. 

5th. Moreover, since the post-office would pay the 
publisher by cheque, which might be made payable to 
order, no person of the class of a letter-carrier or a post- 
office clerk would be able, if he did commit forgery, to 
get the money. 

6th. The only work which this process of transmis- 
sion would give to the post-office would be that of going 
through the number of postcards brought by the pub- 
lisher's messenger, checking the list of the sums con- 
tained on them, and checking the addition. If this 
labour is divided over the whole number of cards, say 
from 50 to 100 brought at once, the amount of labour 
entailed by the transaction which each card represents 
is seen to be extremely small. To which add that -against 
this amount of trouble given to the post-office there 
would be a countervailing economy. Under such a sys- 
tem the number of postcards delivered by each post to a 
publisher would be great ; and since the chief cost of the 
postal system is in the delivery, the cost of delivery, when 
a great number of cards were taken at once by a letter- 
carrier to the publisher, would be, for each one of them. 



BOOK-DISTRIBUTION. 105 

greatly reduced. Obviously, the diminislied cost of de- 
livery for each card would more than compensate for 
the amount of trouble taken in checking and adding up 
the amounts. If a halfpenny for a postcard suffices to 
pay for the cost of delivery at present, then there would 
actually be, by multiplication of transactions, a profit, 
rather than a loss to the post-office. 

7th. Further, it is to be borne in mind that the 
post-office would make its profit on the postage of the 
books ordered. If the amounts now charged for the 
transmission of books are adequate to cover the cost 
and leave a margin, then whatever multiplies such trans- 
actions profits the post-office; and therefore, if there 
were any unpaid trouble, entailed by these cards upon 
the post-office, it would be repaid by the profits on the 
books sent according to order. 

8th. Should it, however, be held that the transaction 
must be made to bring positive, obvious profit, then this 
end might easily be achieved by the requirement that 
a halfpenny postage-stamp should be affixed on the post- 
card in addition to the printed stamp. 

My anxiety to get some such system adopted is due 
to the fact, which I think I indicated when I had the 
pleasure of talking with you at Mr. Eustace Smith's, that 
an immense lowering of price in books might be achieved 
in this way, and a consequent immense extension in 
their diffusion. The present system of distribution 
through wholesale houses and retail booksellers is an 
absurd anachronism. It grew up under, and was appro- 
priate to, the ancient system of communication by 
coaches and subsequently by railway parcels; but is al- 
together inappropriate to a time when the book-post 

furnishes a better system of distribution. The survival 
8 



106 BOOK-DISTRIBUTION. 

of the old system is due to organized trade interests; and 
it immensely impedes the diffusion of books by paying 
for a labour wbicli has become unnecessary. It is true 
that of late times the nominal prices of books are prac- 
tically reduced by the discount of 2d. in the shilling, 
or even more by some retailers; but, in the first place, 
this does not prevent book-buyers from being often de- 
terred from buying by reading in an advertisement the 
nominal price of a book, which they think too high to 
be afforded by them; and, in the second place, the re- 
duction which these retailers make is nothing like as 
great as might be made if the labour of both wholesaler 
and retailer were done away with, as it ought now to be. 
Fully 40 per cent, of the published price of every book 
now goes to cover the cost of porterage — the cost of 
transferring the book from the publisher to the reader. 
This 40 per cent, by no means represents the entire en- 
hancement of the published price of the book. Prices 
of books would be lowered by much more than 40 per 
cent, if this existing system could be replaced in the way 
I have described. As you know, better than I do, it is 
a familiar truth, especially to economists, that any tax 
on a commodity raises its price by more than the amount 
of the tax; and this holds very obviously in the present 
case. Let the 40 per cent, be deducted from the adver- 
tised prices of books, and immediately the demand for 
them becomes immensely greater, probably double. The 
demand being doubled makes it possible to obtain an 
adequate return with a smaller profit on each copy to 
author and publisher; and therefore prompts a still fur- 
ther reduction in the price, and this again a still fur- 
ther distribution, acting and re-acting. So that I do 
not doubt that the prices of books would, by the adoption 



M. DE LAVELEYE'S ERROR. 107 

of this system, be lowered by one half. As a further 
reason for this I should add that even the publisher 
could afford, setting aside the increase in his business, 
to lower his rate of profit on each copy; for the reason 
that his transactions would be much less costly. At 
present his business with wholesale and some retail 
houses entails a considerable amount of book-keeping, 
and a staff of clerks adapted to the labour. But in the 
system described the greater part of this book-keeping 
would disappear; the work of fulfilling the orders re- 
ceived would be purely mechanical; and a small staff 
of a lower capacity would suffice his needs, enabling 
him to diminish the rate of profit per copy he at present 
requires. Further, being prepaid, he would have to 
make no allowance for bad debts; and this would again 
diminish the needful rate of profit. 

I may add that the great lowering in the price of 
books which would inevitably take place, would more 
especially tell upon the graver and higher priced books, 
which are now beyond the reach of the great mass of 
book-buyers. 



M. DE LAYELEYE'S EEKOK. 

By way of introduction to this article nothing more 
is needed than to say that it was published in The Con- 
temporary Review for April, 1885, under the title '^ A 
Rejoinder to M. de Laveleye." The misinterpretation 
he made of my political views is one very generally 
made, and these pages, which seek to exclude it; may 
therefore fitly have a permanent place. 



108 M. DE LAVELEYE'S EEROR. 

The editor of the Contemporary Review having 
kindly allowed me to see a proof of the foregoing article 
by M. de Laveleye, and having assented to my request 
that I might be allowed to append a few explanations 
and comments, in place of a more formal reply in a 
future number of the Eeview, I have, in the following 
pages, set down as much as seems needful to prevent 
the grave misunderstandings likely to be produced by 
M. de Laveleye's criticisms, if they are permitted to pass 
unnoticed. 

On the first page of his essay, M. de Laveleye, refer- 
ring to the effort to establish " greater equality among 
men " by " appropriating State, or communal, revenues " 
for that end, writes — 

" Mr. Spencer considers that this effort for the im- 
provement of the condition of the working-classes, which 
is being everywhere made with greater or less energy, is 
a violation of natural laws, which will not fail to bring 
its own punishment on nations, thus misguided by a blind 
philanthropy " (p. 485). 

As this sentence stands, and especially as joined with 
all which follows, it is calculated to produce the impres- 
sion that I am opposed to measures " for the improve- 
ment of the condition of the working-classes." This is 
quite untrue, as numerous passages from my books would 
show. Two questions are involved — What are the meas- 
ures? and — What is the agency for carrying them out? 
In the first place, there are various measures conducive 
to " improvement of the condition of the working- 
classes " which I have always contended, and still con- 
tend, devolve on public agencies, general and local — 
above all, an efficient administration of justice, by which 



M. DE LAVELEYE'S ERROR. 109 

they benefit both directly and indirectly — an adminis- 
tration such as not simply represses violence and fraud, 
but promptly brings down a penalty on every one who 
trespasses against his neighbour, even by a nuisance. 
While contending for the diminution of State-action of 
the positively-regulative kind, I have contended for the 
increase of State-action of the negatively-regulative kind 
— that kind which restrains the activities of citizens 
within the limits imposed by the existence of other citi- 
zens who have like claims to carry on their activities. I 
have shown that " maladministration of justice raises, 
very considerably, the cost of living for all; '' * and is, 
therefore, felt especially by the working-classes, whose 
state is most closely dependent on the cost of living. As 
one of the evils of over-legislation, I have, from the be- 
ginning, urged that, while multitudinous other questions 
absorb public attention, the justice-question gets scarcely 
any attention; and social life is everywhere vitiated by 
the consequent inequities, f While defending laissez- 
faire in its original and proper sense, I have pointed out 
that the policy of universal meddling has for its con- 
comitant that vicious laissez-faire which leaves dishon- 
esty to flourish at the expense of honesty. $ In the 
second place, there are numerous other measures con- 
ducive to " the improvement of the condition of the 
working-classes " which I desire quite as much as M. 
de Laveleye to see undertaken; and simply differ from 
him concerning the agency by which they shall be 
undertaken. Without wishing to restrain philanthropic 

* Study of Sociology, p. 415, postscript in library edition, 
t See Social Statics : " The Duty of the State." Also Essays, vol. 
ii. pp. 94-8 ; vol. iii. p. 167. 

X Study of Sociology, pp. 351-3, cheap edition. 



110 M. DE LAVELEYE'S ERROR. 

actioiij but quite contrariwise, I have in various places 
argued that philanthropy will better achieve its ends by 
non-governmental means than by governmental means. ^ 
M. de Laveleye is much more familiar than I am with 
the facts showing that, in societies at large, the organ- 
ized arrangements which carry on production and dis- 
tribution have been evolved not only without State- 
help, but very generally in spite of State-hindrance; 
and hence I am surprised that he apparently gives no 
credence to the doctrine that, by private persons acting 
either individually or in combination, there may be 
better achieved multitudinous ends which it is the fash- 
ion to invoke State-agency for. 

Speaking of the domain of individual liberty, M. de 
Laveleye says — 

" To be brief, I agree with Mr. Herbert Spencer that, 
contrary to Rousseau's doctrine. State power ought to 
be limited, and that a domain should be reserved to indi- 
vidual liberty which should be always respected ; but the 
limits of this domain should be fixed, not by the people, 
but by reason and science, keeping in view what is best 
for the public welfare " (p. 488). 

I am a good deal perplexed at finding the last clause of 
this sentence apparently addressed to me as though in op- 
position. Social Statics is a work mainly occupied with 
the endeavour to establish these limits by "reason and 
science." In the Data of Ethics, I have sought, in a 
chapter entitled the " Sociological View,'' to show how 
certain limits to individual liberty are deducible from 
the laws of life as carried on under social conditions. 
And in The Man versus The State, which M. de Laveleye 

* Social Statics : " Poor Laws." 



M. DE LAYELEYE'S ERROR. HI 

is more particularly dealing with, one part of the last 
chapter is devoted to showing, deductively, the deriva- 
tion of what are called '' natural rights " from the vital 
needs which each man has to satisfy by activities pur- 
sued in presence of other men who have to satisfy like 
needs; while another part of the chapter is devoted to 
showing, inductively, how recognition of natural rights 
began, in the earliest social groups, to be initiated by 
those retaliations which trespasses called forth — retalia- 
tions ever tending to produce respect for the proper limits 
of action. If M. de Laveleye does not consider this to 
be an- establishment of limits " by reason and science,'^ 
what are the kinds of ^' reason and science '' by which he 
expects to establish them? 

On another page M. de Laveleye says — 

" I am of opinion that the State should make use of 
its legitimate powers of action for the establishment of 
greater equality among men, in proportion to their per- 
sonal merits " (p. 489). 

Merely observing that the expression " its legitimate 
powers of action " seems to imply a begging of the ques- 
tion, since the chief point in dispute is — What are " its 
legitimate powers of action? " I go on to express my sur- 
prise at such a sentence coming from a distinguished poli- 
tical economist. M. de Laveleye refers to the " old-fash- 
ioned political economy," implying that he is one of those 
younger economists who dissent from its doctrine; but I 
was quite unprepared to find that his dissent went so far 
as tacitly to deny that in the average of cases a propor- 
tioning of rewards to personal merits naturally takes place 
under the free play of supply and demand. Still less, 
after all the exposures made of the miseries inflicted on 



112 M. DE LAVELEYE'S ERROR. 

men throughout the past by the blundering attempts of 
the State to adjust prices and wages, did I expect to see 
in a political economist such a revived confidence in the 
State as would commission it to adjust men's rewards 
" in • proportion to their personal merits." I hear that 
there are some who contend that payment should be pro- 
portionate to the disagreeableness of the work done: the 
implication, I suppose, being that the knacker and the 
nightman should receive two or three guineas a day, 
while a physician's fee should be haK-a-crown. But, with 
such a proportioning, I suspect that, as there would be 
no returns, adequate to repay the cost and time and la- 
bour of preparation for the practice of medicine, physic- 
ians would quickly disappear; as would, indeed, all those 
required for the higher social functions. I do not sup- 
pose that M. de Laveleye contemplates a proportioning 
just of this kind. But if in face of all experience, past 
and present, he trusts officialism to judge of " personal 
merits," he is sanguine to a degree which surprises me. 
One of the questions which M. de Laveleye asks is — 

" If the intervention of public power for the improve- 
ment of the condition of the working-classes be a con- 
tradiction of history, and a return to ancient militant 
society, how is it that the country in which the new in- 
dustrial organization is the most developed — that is to 
say, England — is also the country where State interven- 
tion is the most rapidly increasing, and where opinion 
is at the same time pressing for these powers of inter- 
ference to be still further extended? " (p. 491). 

Several questions are here raised besides the chief one. 
I have already pointed out that my objection is not to 
" intervention of public power for the improvement of 
the condition of the working-classes," but to interven- 



M. DE LAYELEYE'S ERROR. 113 

tions of certain kinds. The abolition of laws forbidding 
trade-combinations, and of laws forbidding the travelling 
of artisans, were surely measures wbich improved ^' the 
condition of the working-classes; " and these were meas- 
ures which I should have been eager to join in obtain- 
ing. Similarly, at the present time I am desirous of see- 
ing provided the easiest and most efhcient remedies for 
sailors fraudulently betrayed into unseaworthy ships; 
and I heartily sympathize with those who denounce the 
continual encroachments of landowners — enclosures of 
commons and the turf-covered borders of lanes, &c. 
These, and kindred injustices to the working-classes, 
stretching far back, I am no less desirous to see remedied 
than is M. de Laveleye; provided always that due care is 
taken that other injustices are not committed in remedy- 
ing them. Evidently, then, this expression of M. de 
Laveleye raises a false issue. Again, he says that I call 
this public intervention on behalf of the working-classes 
'^ a return to ancient militant society." This is quite a 
mistake. In ancient militant society the condition of the 
working-classes was very little cared for, and, indeed, 
scarcely thought of. My assertion was that the coercive 
system employed was like the coercive system employed 
in a militant society: the ends to which the systems are 
directed being quite different. But turning to the chief 
point in his question, I meet it by counter-questions — 
Why is it that the " new industrial organization " is best 
developed in England ? and — Under what conditions was 
it developed ? I need hardly point out to M. de Laveleye 
that the period during which industrial organization in 
England developed more rapidly and extensively than 
elsewhere, was a period during which the form of govern- 
ment was less coercive than elsewhere, and the indivi- 



114 M. DE LAVELEYE'S EEROR. 

dual less interfered with than elsewhere. And if now, 
led bj the admirers of Continental bnreancracies, eager 
philanthropists are more rapidly extending State-admin- 
istrations here than they are being extended abroad, it 
is obviously because there is great scope for the further 
extension of them here, while abroad there is little scope 
for the further extension of them. 

In justification of coercive methods for ^^ improving 
the condition of the working-classes/' M. de Laveleye 



" One fact is sufficient to show the great progress 
due to this State legislation: in an ever-increasing 
population, crime is rapidly and greatly diminishing " 
(p. 496). 

ISTow, without dwelling on the fact, shown in Mr. Pike's 
History of Crime in England, that ^' violence and law- 
lessness '' had increased during the war period which end- 
ed at AVaterloo; and without dwelling on the fact that, 
after the recovery from prostration produced by war, 
there was a diminution of crime along with that great 
diminution of coercive legislation which characterized the 
long period of peace; I go on to remark that a primary 
condition to the correct drawing of inferences is — other 
things equal. Does M. de Laveleye really think, when 
comparing the state of the last generation with that of 
the present, that other things are so equal that to the 
growth of State-administrations can be ascribed the de- 
crease of crime? He ignores those two factors, far more 
important than all others, which have produced a social 
revolution — railways and free-trade: the last resulting 
from the abolition of e:overmental restraints after a lonsj 
struggle, and the first effected by private enterprise car- 
ried out in spite of strenuous opposition for some time 



M. DE LAVELEYE'S ERROR. 115 

made in the Legislature. Beyond all question, the pros- 
perity due to these factors has greatly ameliorated the 
condition of the working-classes, and by so doing has 
diminished crime; for undoubtedly, diminishing the dif- 
ficulties of getting food, diminishes one of the tempta- 
tions to crime. If M. de Laveleye refers to a more recent 
diminution, then, unless he denies the alleged relation 
between drunkenness and crime, he must admit that the 
temperance agitation, with its pledges, its " Bands of 
Hope,'' and its " Blue Kibbon League,'' has had a good 
deal to do with it. 

Before passing to the chief question let me correct 
M. de Laveleye on some minor points. He says — 

'' I think that the great fundamental error of Mr. 
Herbert Spencer's system, which is so generally accepted 
at the present day, consists in the belief that if State 
power were but sufiiciently reduced," &c. 

'Now I set against this a sentence not long since pub- 
lished by Mr. Frederic Harrison; 

" Mr. Spencer has himself just published . . . 
The Man versus The State, to which he hardly expects 
to make a convert except here and there, and about 
which an unfriendly critic might say that it might be 
entitled ^ Mr. Spencer against all England.' " (Nine- 
teenth Century, vol. xvi. p. 366.) 

The fear lest my arguments should prevail, which I 
presume prompted M. de Laveleye's article, is evident- 
ly ill-founded. I wish I saw reason to believe that 
his estimate is nearer to the truth than the opposite 
one. 

On p. 490, M. de Laveleye writes — 

" The law that Mr. Herbert Spencer desires society 



116 M. DE LAYELEYE'S ERROR. 

to adopt is simply Darwin's law — ^ tlie survival of the 
fittest.' " 

Perhaps I may be excused for wishing here to prevent 
further confirmation of a current error. In his article, 
M. de Laveleye has quoted from Social Statics passages 
showing insistence on the benefits resulting from sur- 
vival of the fittest among mankind, as well as among 
animals; though he ignores the fact that the work as 
a whole is an elaborate statement of the conditions under 
which, and limits within which, the natural process of 
elimination of the unfit should be allowed to operate. 
Here my immediate purpose is to correct the impression 
which his statement, as above worded, produces, by nam- 
ing the dates: Social Statics was published in 1851; 
Mr. Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. 

And now I pass to the main issue. In pursuance of 
his statement that I wish society to adopt the survival 
of the fittest as its guiding principle, M. de Laveleye 
goes on to describe what would be its action as applied 
to mankind. Here are his words. 

" This is the ideal order of things which, we are told, 
ought to prevail in human societies, but everything in 
our present organization (which economists, and even 
Mr. Spencer himself, admit, however, to be natural) is 
wholly opposed to any such conditions. An old and 
sickly lion captures a gazelle; his younger and stronger 
brother arrives, snatchies away his prize, and lives to per- 
petuate the species; the old one dies in the struggle, or 
is starved to death. Such is the beneficent law of the 
^ survival of the fittest.' It was thus among barbarian 
tribes. But could such a law exist in our present social 
order? Certainly not! The rich man, feebly consti- 
tuted and sickly, protected by the law, enjoys his wealth, 
marries and has offspring, and if an Apollo of herculean 
strength attempted to take from him his possessions. 



M. DB LAVELEYE'S ERROR. 117 

or his wife, he would be thrown into prison, and 
were he to attempt to practise the Darwinian law of 
selection, he would certainly run a fair risk of the gal- 
lows '^ (p. 492). 

:N'ow though, on the next page, M. de Laveleye recog- 
nizes the fact that the survival of the fittest, as I con- 
strue it in its social applications, is the survival of the 
industrially superior and those who are fittest for the re- 
quirements of social life, yet, in the paragraph I have 
quoted, he implies that the view I hold would counte- 
nance violent methods of replacing the inferior by the 
superior. Unless he desires to suggest that I wish to see 
the principle operate among men as it operates among 
brutes, why did he write this paragraph? In the work 
before him, without referring to other works, he has 
abundant proof that, above all things, aggression of 
every kind is hateful to me; and he scarcely needs tell- 
ing that from my earliest book, written more than a third 
of a century ago, down to the present time, I have urged 
the change of all laws which either inflict injustice or 
fail to remedy injustice, whether committed by one in- 
dividual against another, or by class against class, or by 
people against people. Why, then, did M. de Laveleye 
make it seem that I would, if I could, establish a reign 
of injustice under its most brutal form? If there needs 
proof that in my view the struggle for existence as car- 
ried on in society, and the greater multiplication of those 
best fitted for the struggle, must be subject to rigorous 
limitations, I may quote as sufficient proof a passage 
from the Data of Ethics: premising that the word co- 
operation used in it, must be understood in its widest 
sense, as comprehending all those combined activities 
by which citizens carry on social life. 



118 M. DE LAVELEYE'S ERROR. 

" The leading traits of a code under which complete 
living through voluntary co-operation [here antithet- 
ically opposed to compulsory co-operation, characterizing 
the militant type of society] is secured, may be simply 
stated. The fundamental requirement is that the life- 
sustaining actions of each shall severally bring him the 
amounts and kinds of advantage naturally achieved by 
them; and this implies, firstly, that he shall suffer no 
direct aggressions on his person or property, and, second- 
ly, that he shall suffer no indirect aggressions by breach 
of contract. Observance of these negative conditions to 
voluntary co-operation having facilitated life to the great- 
est extent by exchange of services under agreement, life 
is to be further facilitated by exchange of services beyond 
agreement: the highest life being reached only when, 
besides helping to complete one another's lives by speci- 
fied reciprocities of aid, men otherwise help to complete 
one another's lives " (p. 149). 

This passage, indeed, raises in a convenient form the 
essential question. It will be observed that in it are 
specified two sets of conditions, by conforming to which 
men living together may achieve the greatest happiness. 
The first set of conditions is that which we comprehend 
under the general name jusfice; the second set of con- 
ditions is that which we comprehend under the general 
name generosity. The position of M. de Laveleye, and 
of the multitudes who think with him, is that the com- 
munity, through its government, may rightly undertake 
both to administer justice and to practise generosity. 
On the other hand, I, and the few who think with me, 
contend that justice alone is to be administered by the 
community in its corporate capacity; and that the prac- 
tice of generosity is to be left to private individuals, and 
voluntarily-formed combinations of individuals. In- 
suring each citizen's safety in person and property, as 



M. DE LAVELEYE'S ERROR. 119 

well as insuring liini such returns for his services as his 
fellow-citizens agree to give, is a public affair; while 
affording him help, and giving him benefits beyond 
those he has earned, is a private affair. The reason for 
maintaining this distinction is that the last duty cannot 
be undertaken by the State without breach of the first. 
The vital requirement to social life must be broken that 
a non-vital requirement may be fulfilled. Under a reign 
of absolute justice unqualified by generosity, a social life 
may be carried on, though not the highest social life; 
but a reign of generosity without any justice — a system 
under which those who work are not paid, so that those 
who have been idle or drunken may be saved from misery 
— is fatal; and any approach to it is injurious. That 
only can be a wholesome state in which conduct brings 
its natural results, good or evil, as the case may be; and 
it is the business of Government, acting on behalf of all, 
to see that each citizen shall not be defrauded of the 
good results, and that he shall not shoulder off the evil 
results on to others. If others, in their private capacities, 
are prompted by affection or pity to mitigate the evil 
results, by all means let them do so: no power can 
equitably prevent them from making efforts, or giving 
money, to diminish the sufferings of the unfortunate 
and the inferior; at the same time that no power can 
equitably coerce them into doing this. 

If M. de Laveleye holds, as he appears to do, that 
enforcing the normal relations between conduct and 
consequences, right as it may be in the abstract, is im- 
practicable under existing social conditions, which are 
in many cases such that men get what they have neither 
earned nor otherwise equitably received, and in many 
cases such that they are prevented from earning any- 



120 GOVERNMENT BY MINORITY. 

thing; then my reply is, by all means, where this con- 
dition of things is due to unjust arrangements, let us 
rectify these arrangements as fast as we can. But let us 
not adopt the disastrous policy of establishing new injus- 
tices for the purpose of mitigating the mischiefs pro- 
duced by old injustices. 



GOYEE^ME^TT BY MIXOKITY. 

The Irish party in 1885, under the leadership of Mr. 
Parnell, carried on an organized system of obstruction, 
the aim of which was to stop all legislation until Home 
Rule had been granted. The immediate question was 
that which exclusively occupied attention, but it seemed 
desirable to draw attention to a remoter question which 
was involved; and to this end I published the following 
letter in Tlie Times for December 21, 1885. 

Amid minor political issues occupying all minds the 
major political issue passes unnoticed. 

The major political issue is — shall we maintain the 
supremacy of majorities? While in theory asserting it 
more emphatically than ever, we are in practice meanly 
relinquishing it. The very moment after we have ex- 
tended the system of government by majority outside 
the House, we are tacitly allowing the system of govern- 
ment by minority inside the House. We are helplessly 
looking forward to the coercion of two great parties by 
one small party. 

Right feeling alone, or moderate intelligence alone, 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. 121 

sliould have sufficed to make such a thing impossible, 
much more the two united. This impudent dictation 
by the few to the many might have been expected to 
rouse in the many a just anger, great enough to make 
them sink all party differences while jointly resisting 
it; and it might have been expected that Liberals and 
Conservatives alike, without any high stretch of intel- 
lect, would have seen that, deeper than any legislative 
question which divides them, is the question whether 
they shall allow the principle on which all our legisla- 
tion is founded to be contemptuously broken through. 

Thirty years ago Prince Albert gave great offence by 
saying that representative government was on its trial. 
We are noAV approaching a supreme moment when its 
trial threatens to end in lamentable failure. If this fail- 
ure occurs — if the 584 allow themselves to be coerced 
by the 86 — then the 584 will be traitors to free institu- 
tions. 



EYOLUTIO^AEY ETHICS. 

The following letter, published in the Atlienceum for 
August 5, 1893, was drawn from me in response to cer- 
tain passages in the Romanes Lecture, delivered by the 
late Prof. Huxley at Oxford in the Spring of 1893. 
These passages were supposed to be directed against doc- 
trines I hold (see Athenceum, July 22, 1893); and it 
seemed needful that I should defend myself against an 
attack coming from one whose authority was so great. 
My justification for including this letter among these 



122 EVOLUTIONAEY ETHICS. 

fragments is that since the Romanes Lecture referred to 
exists in a permanent form, it is proper that a permanent 
form should be given to my reply. 

If it is not too great a breach of your rules, will you 
allow me space for some remarks suggested by the review 
of Prof. Huxley's lecture on ^' Evolution and Ethics/' 
contained in your issue of the 22nd inst.? 

The incongruity between note 19 of the series ap- 
pended to the lecture, and a leading doctrine contained 
in the lecture itself, is rightly pointed out by your re- 
viewer. In the lecture Prof. Huxley says: — 

" The practice of that which is ethically best — what 
we call goodness or virtue — involves a course of conduct 
which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to 
success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of 
ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint." — P. 33. 

But in note 19 he admits that — 

"strictly speaking [why not rightly speaking?], social 
life and the ethical process, in virtue of which it ad- 
vances towards perfection, are part and parcel of the 
general process of evolution, just as the gregarious habit 
of innumerable plants and animals, which has been of 
immense advantage to them, is so." 

I do not see how the original assertion can survive 
after this admission has been made. Practically the last 
cancels the first. If the ethical process is a part of the 
process of evolution or cosmic process, then how can the 
two be put in opposition? Prof. Huxley says: — 

" The struggle for existence, which has done such 
admirable work in cosmic nature, must, it appears [ac- 
cording to the view he opposes], be equally beneficent 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. 123 

in tlie ethical sphere. Yet, if that which I have insisted 
upon is true ; if the cosmic process has no sort of relation 
to moral ends; if the imitation of it by man is inconsist- 
ent with the first principles of ethics; what becomes of 
this surprising theory? '' — P. 34. 

But when we find that the hypothetical statement, 
" if the cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral 
ends,'' is followed by the positive statement that " the 
cosmic process " has " a sort of relation to moral ends," 
we may ask, " what becomes of this surprising " criti- 
cism? Obviously, indeed. Prof. Huxley cannot avoid 
admitting that the ethical process, and, by implication, 
the ethical man, are products of the cosmic process. For 
if the ethical man is not a product of the cosmic process, 
what is he a product of? 

The view of which Prof. Huxley admits the truth in 
note 19 is the view which I have perpetually enunciated: 
the difference being that instead of relegating it to an 
obscure note, I have made it a conspicuous component 
of the text. As far back as 1850, when I did not yet re- 
cognize evolution as a process co-extensive with the cos- 
mos, but only as a process exhibited in man and in so- 
ciety, I contended that social progress is a result of '^ the 
ethical process," saying that — 

" the ultimate man will be one whose private require- 
ments coincide with public ones. He will be that man- 
ner of man who, in spontaneously fulfilling his own na- 
ture incidentally performs the functions of a social unit; 
and yet is only enabled so to fulfil his own nature, by all 
others doing the like." — Social Statics, " General Con- 
siderations." 

And from that time onwards I have, in various ways, 
insisted upon this truth. In a chapter of the Principles 



124 EYOLUTIONART ETHICS. 

of Ethics entitled '^ Altruism versus Egoism/' it is con- 
tended that from the dawn of life altrnism of a kind (par- 
ental altruism) has been as essential as egoism; and that 
in the associated state the function of altruism becomes 
wider, and the importance of it greater, in proportion 
as the civilization becomes higher. Moreover, I have 
said that — 

^^ from the laws of life it must be concluded that unceas- 
ing social discipline will so mould human nature, that 
eventually sympathetic pleasures will be spontaneously 
pursued to the fullest extent advantageous to each and 
aiV— Ethics, § 95. 

" With the highest type of human life, there will 
come also a state in w^hich egoism and altruism are so con- 
ciliated that the one merges in the other." — Ih., ap- 
pended chapter to Part I. 

Everywhere it is asserted that the process of adapta- 
tion (which, in its direct and indirect forms, is a part of 
the cosmic process) must continuously tend (under peace- 
ful conditions) to produce a type of society and a type of 
individual in which " the instincts of savagery in civilized 
men " will be not only " curbed," but repressed. And I 
believe that in few, if any, writings will be found as un- 
ceasing a denunciation of that brute form of the struggle 
for existence which has been going on between societies, 
and which, though in early times a cause of progress, is 
now becoming a cause of retrogression. 'No one has so 
often insisted that " the ethical process " is hindered by 
the cowardly conquests of bullet and shell over arrow and 
assegai, which demoralize the one side while slaughter- 
ing the other. 

And here, while referring to the rebarbarizing effects 
of the struggle for existence carried on by brute force, 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. 125 

let me saj tliat I am glad to have Prof. Huxley^s endor- 
sement of the proposition that the survival of the fittest 
is not always the survival of the best. Twenty years ago, 
in an essay entitled " Mr. Martineau on Evolution/' I 
pointed out that " the fittest '' throughout a wide range of 
cases — perhaps the widest range — rare not the "best"; 
and said that 1 had chosen the expression " survival of the 
fittest " rather than the survival of the best because the 
latter phrase did not cover the facts. 

Chiefly, however, I wish to point out the radical mis- 
conceptions which are current concerning that form of 
evolutionary ethics with w^hich I am identified. In the 
preface to The Data of Ethics, when first published se- 
parately, I remarked that by treating the whole subject 
in parts, which would by many be read as though they 
were w^holes, I had " given abundant opportunity for mis- 
representation." The opportunity has not been lost. 
The division treating of " Justice " has been habitually 
spoken of as though nothing more was intended to be said ; 
and this notwithstanding warnings which the division it- 
self contains, as in § 257, and again in § 270; where it is 
said that " other injunctions which ethics has to utter do 
not here concern us . . . there are the demands and re- 
straints included imder Negative Beneficence and Posi- 
tive Beneficence, to be hereafter treated of." Even if 
considered apart, however, the doctrine set forth in this 
division has no such interpretation as that perversely put 
upon it. It is represented as nothing but an assertion of 
the claims of the individual to what benefits he can gain 
in the struggle for existence; whereas it is in far larger 
measure a specification of the equitable limits to his ac- 
tivities, and of the restraints which must be imposed on 
him. I am not aware that any one has more emphatic- 



126 EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. 

ally asserted that society in its corporate capacity must 
exercise a rigorous control over its individual members, to 
the extent needful for preventing trespasses one upon 
another. Xo one has more frequently or strongly de- 
nounced governments for the laxity with which they ful- 
fil this duty. So far from being, as some have alleged, 
an advocacy of the claims of the strong against the weak, 
it is much more an insistence that the weak shall be guard- 
ed against the strong, so that they may suffer no greater 
evils than their relative weakness itself involves. And 
no one has more vehemently condemned that ^' miserable 
laissez-faire which calmly looks on while men ruin them- 
selves in trying to enforce by law their equitable claims " 
Ethics, § 271). 

Kow that the remaining parts, treating of Benefi- 
cence, have been added to the rest, the perverse misinter- 
pretation continues in face of direct disproofs. At the 
very outset of the Ethics it is said: — 

" There remains a further advance not yet even 
hinted. For beyond so behaving that each achieves his 
ends without preventing others from achieving their 
ends, the members of a society may give mutual help in 
the achievement of ends." — §6. 

And in a subsequent chapter it is said that 

^' the limit of evolution of conduct is consequently not 
reached until, beyond avoidance of direct and indirect 
injuries to others, there are spontaneous efforts to further 
the welfare of others." " It may be sho^vn that the fonn 
of nature which thus to justice adds beneficence, is one 
which adaptation to the social state produces." — § 54. 

These are texts which in Parts Y. and YL, dealing with 
Beneficence, ^N'egative and Positive, are fully expanded. 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. 127 

Having first distinguished between '^ kinds of altruism," 
and contended that the kind we call justice has to be en- 
forced by the incorporated society, the State, while the 
kind we call beneficence must be left to individuals, and 
after pointing out the grave evils which result if this dis- 
tinction is not maintained, I have described in detail 
the limits to men's actions which negative beneficence 
enjoins. Then come two chapters, entitled ^' Restraints 
on Free Competition " and " Restraints on Free Con- 
tract," respectively indicating various cases in which the 
restraints imposed by law must be supplemented by self- 
restraints, and instancing one of the excesses committed 
under free competition as amounting to " commercial 
murder." Chapters enjoining further self-restraints for 
the benefit of others are followed, in the division on Posi- 
tive Beneficence, by chapters enjoining efforts on their 
behalf, and the duty which falls on the superior of miti- 
gating the evils which the inferior have to bear. After 
dealing, in a chapter on " Relief of the Poor," Avith the 
evils often caused by attempts to diminish distress, it is 
contended that philanthropic duty should be performed 
not by proxy, but directly; and that each person of 
means ought to see to the welfare of the particular cluster 
of inferiors with whom his circumstances put him in re- 
lation. The general nature of the doctrine set forth may 
be inferred from two sentences in the closing chapter: — 

^^ The highest beneficence is that which is not only 
prepared, if need be, to sacrifice egoistic pleasures, but 
is also prepared, if need be, to sacrifice altruistic pleas- 
ures." — § 474. 

And then, speaking of the natures which "the ethical 
process " is in course of producing, it is said that 



128 EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. 

" in such natures a large part of the mental life must 
result from participation in the mental lives of others." 
— § 475. 

I do not see how there could be expressed ideas more 
diametrically opposed to that brutal individualism which 
some persons ascribe to me. 

It remains only to say that Prof. Huxley's attack 
upon the doctrines of Eavachol & Co. has my hearty 
approval, though I do not quite see the need for it. Evi- 
dently it is intended for the extreme anarchists; or, at 
least, I know of no others against whom his arguments 
tell. It has been absurdly supposed that his lecture was, 
in part, an indirect criticism upon theories held by me. 
But this cannot be. It is scarcely supposable that he de- 
liberately undertook to teach me my own doctrines, 
enunciated some of them forty-odd years ago. Passing 
over the historical and metaphysical parts of his lecture, 
his theses are those for which I have always contended. 
We agree that the process of evolution must reach a 
limit, after which a reverse change must begin (First 
Principles, chaps. ''Equilibration" and ''Dissolution"). 
We agree that the survival of the fittest is often not sur- 
vival of the best. We agree in denouncing the brutal 
form of the struggle for existence. We agree that the 
ethical process is a part of the process of evolution. We 
agree that the struggle for life needs to be qualified when 
the gregarious state is entered, and that among gregari- 
ous creatures lower than man a rudiment of the ethical 
check is visible. We agree that among men the ethical 
check, becoming more and more peremptory, has to be 
enforced by the society in its corporate capacity, the 
State. We agree that beyond that qualification of the 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. 129 

struggle for life which consists in restricting the activi- 
ties of each so that he may not trench upon the spheres 
for the like activities of others, which we call justice, 
there needs that further qualification which we call 
beneficence; and we differ only respecting the agency 
by which the beneficence should be exercised. We 
agree in emphasizing, as a duty, the effort to mitigate 
the evils which the struggle for existence in the social 
state entails; and how complete is this agreement may 
be seen on observing that the sentiment contained in 
Prof. Huxley's closing lines is identical with the senti- 
ment contained in the last paragraph of the Principles 
of Ethics. Obviously, then, it is impossible that Prof. 
Huxley can have meant to place the ethical views he 
holds in opposition to the ethical views I hold; and it is 
the more obviously impossible because, for a fortnight 
before his lecture. Prof. Huxley had in his hands the 
volumes containing the above quotations, along with 
multitudinous passages of kindred meanings. But as 
this erroneous belief is prevalent, it seems needful for 
me to dissipate it. Hence this letter. 

The closing lines of this last paragraph were regarded 
by Prof. Huxley as tacitly charging him with an unac- 
knowledged adoption of my views. It did not occur to 
me when writing them that they could be so interpreted. 
My intention was simply to show that he had abundant 
opportunity for seeing at first hand what my views were, 
and had therefore the less reason for presenting his own 
similar views as though they stood in opposition to mine. 



130 SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL DUTY^ 



SOCIAL EYOLUTIOE^ AND SOCIAL DUTY. 

It is quite hj accident that this fragment succeeds 
the last in order of date, and when it was written the last 
was not in nay thoughts. The sequence, however, is for- 
tunate. Its cardinal idea is similar to that contained in 
my reply to Prof. Cairnes already given; but as it is 
differently presented, and as it is one which many find 
it difficult to grasp, it seems desirable to repeat it in this 
recast form. A Congress of Evolutionists was held at 
Chicago on Sept. 28, 29 and 30, 1893; and this brief 
paper was sent in response to a request to contribute to 
its proceedings. 

At a congress which has for its chief purpose to 
advance ethics and politics by diffusing evolutionary 
ideas it seems especially needful to dissipate a current 
misconception respecting the relation in which we stand 
individually towards the process of social evolution. 
Errors of a certain class may be grouped as errors of the 
uncultured, but there are errors of another class which 
characterize the cultured — implying, as they do, a large 
amount of knowledge with a good deal of thought but 
yet with thought not commensurate with the knowledge. 
The errors I refer to are of this class. 

The conception of evolution at large, as it exists in 
those who are aware that evolution includes much more 
than " natural selection," involves the belief that from 



SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL DUTY. 131 

beginning to end it goes on irresistibly and uncon- 
sciously. The concentration of nebulae into stars and the 
formation of solar systems are determined entirely by 
certain properties of the matter previously diffused. 
Planets which were once gaseous, then liquid, and finally 
covered by their crusts, gradually undergo geological 
transformations in virtue of mechanical and chemical 
processes. 

Similarly, too, when we pass to organic bodies, plant 
and animal. Enabled to develop individually, as they 
are, by environing forces, and enabled to develop as spe- 
cies by processes which continue to adapt and readapt 
them to their changing environments, they are made to 
fit themselves to their respective lives and, along certain 
lines, to reach higher lives, purely by the involved play 
of forces of which they are unconscious. The conception 
of evolution at large, thus far correct, is by some ex- 
tended to that highest form of evolution exhibited in 
societies. It is supposed that societies, too, passively 
evolve apart from any conscious agency; and the infer- 
ence is that, according to the evolutionary doctrine, it is 
needless for individuals to have any care about progress, 
since progress will take care of itself. Hence the asser- 
tion that " evolution erected into the paramount law of 
man's moral and social life becomes a paralyzing and 
immoral fatalism." 

Here comes the error. Everyone may see that 
throughout the lower forms of evolution the process goes 
on only because the various units concerned — molecules 
of matter in some cases, and members of a species in an- 
other — respectively manifest their natures. It would 
be absurd to expect that inorganic evolution would con- 
tinue if molecules ceased to attract or combine, and it 



132 SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL DUTY. 

would be absurd to suppose tbat organic evolution would 
continue if the instincts and appetites of individuals of 
each species were wholly or even partially suspended. 

ISTo less absurd is it to expect that social evolution 
will go on apart from the normal activities, bodily and 
mental, of the component individuals — apart from their 
desires and sentiments, and those actions which they 
prompt. It is true that much social evolution is achieved 
without any intention on the part of citizens to achieve 
it, and even without the consciousness that they are 
achieving it. The entire industrial organization in all its 
marvelous complexity, has arisen from the pursuit by 
each person of his own interests, subject to certain re- 
straints imposed by the incorporated society ; and by this 
same spontaneous action have arisen also the multi- 
tudinous appliances of industry, science and art, from 
flint knives up to automatic printing machines, from 
sledges up to locomotives — a fact which might teach 
politicians that there are at work far more potent social 
agencies than those which they control. 

But now observe that just as these astonishing results 
of social evolution, under one of its aspects, could never 
have arisen if men's egoistic activities had been absent, 
so in the absence of their altruistic activities there could 
never have arisen and cannot further arise certain higher 
results of social evolution. Just as the egoistic feel- 
ings are the needful factors in the one case, so the 
altruistic feelings are the needful factors in the other, 
and whoever supposes the theory of evolution to imply 
that advanced foiins of social life will be reached even 
if the sympathetic promptings of individuals cease to 
operate, does not understand what the theory is. 

A simple analogy will make the matter clear. All 



SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL DUTY. 133 

admit that we have certain desires which insure the main- 
tenance of the race — that the instincts which prompt to 
the marital relation and afterwards subserve the parental 
relation make it certain that, without any injunction or 
compulsion, each generation will produce the next. IS^ow 
suppose some one argued that since, in the order of na- 
ture, continuance of the species was thus provided for, 
no one need do anything towards furthering the process 
by marrying. What should we think of his logic — what 
should we think of his expectation that the effect would 
be produced when the causes of it were suspended? 

Yet absurd as he would be, he could not be more 
absurd than the one who supposed that the higher phases 
of social evolution would come without the activity of 
those sympathetic feelings in men which are the factors 
of them — or rather, he would not be more absurd than 
one who supposed that this is implied by the doctrine of 
evolution. 

The error results from failing to see that the citizen 
has to regard himself at once subjectively and objective- 
ly — subjectively as possessing sympathetic sentiments 
(which are themselves the products of evolution); ob- 
jectively as one among many social units having like 
sentiments, by the combined operation of which certain 
social effects are produced. He has to look on himself 
individually as a being moved by emotions which prompt 
philanthropic actions, while, as a member of society, he 
has to look on himself as an agent through whom these 
emotions work out improvements in social life. So far, 
then, is the theory of evolution from implying a " para- 
lyzing and immoral fatalism," it implies that, for gene- 
sis of the highest social type and production of the great- 
est general happiness, altruistic activities are essential 



134 PAELIAMENTARY GEORGITES. 

as well as egoistic activities, and tliat a due share in 
them is obligatory upon each citizen. 



PAELIAMEl^TARY GEOEGITES. 

While the Parish Councils Bill was before Parlia- 
ment, I made the following comment, under the title of 
^' Parliamentary Georgites '^ on the general character of 
its provisions, which was published in The Times for 
February 20, 1894. I had long wished to express the 
opinion that the great majority of Englishmen, aban- 
doning as they have done the teachings of political 
economists and those who a generation ago had diffused 
rational ideas concerning the State and its functions, are 
politically drunk; and I here seized the occasion for in- 
dicating this opinion by signing this letter — " One who 
is still sober.'' 

How Mr. Henry George must chuckle as he reads 
about the doings of the English House of Commons! 
To think that already he should have obtained the 
majority of that assemblage as converts to his leading 
doctrine ! 

To his leading doctrine? Well, if not to the doc- 
trine, yet to the method by which he proposes to carry 
out the doctrine. " We must not turn the landlords out, 
we must tax them out," has been his injunction for years 
past, and our legislators are obeying his injunction. 

From the time when the compound householder 
came into existence it has become manifest a posteriorly 



PARLIAMENTARY GEORGITES. 135 

as it was manifest a 'priori ^ that giving public power 
to men without imposing on them public burdens leads 
to extravagance and injustice. Under municipal gov- 
ernments, practically elected by non-ratepayers (for these 
can turn the scale), lavish expenditure, rising rates, and 
the piling up of vast debts have proceeded with increas- 
ing rapidity. Under rural governments, similarly elected, 
are we not to expect similar results? 

^^ Trust the people,'' they say. Certainly, trust the 
people to do that which human beings in general do — 
follow their own ends. When " the classes " were pre- 
dominant it was rightly complained that they dealt un- 
justly with " the masses." N^ow that '' the masses " are 
predominant, will they not deal unjustly with '^ the 
classes " ? If the first were biased by their interests, will 
not the second also be biased by their interests? And 
what will be their interests? To get as many benefits 
as possible given to them out of public funds to which 
they do not contribute — do not consciously contribute. 

Doubtless Mr. Henry George knows that before the 
Eevolution one-fourth of France was made valueless by 
the weight of taxation and became waste. Probably he 
knows, too, that under our old Poor Law the rates had 
in some parishes risen to half the rental, and that in one 
Buckinghamshire parish they had absorbed the whole 
proceeds of the soil — owners' rents, occupiers' profits — 
and that the rector, having given up his glebe and tithes, 
proposed that all the land should be divided among the 
paupers. 

Perhaps Mr. George will infer that, if this could 
happen when the rate-eaters had no power of levying 
rates, far more readily will it happen when those who get 
gratis benefits from rates will have part power and often 



136 A RECORD OP LEGISLATION. 

the chief power of levying rates. And if he infers this, 
we may imagine the sardonic grin with which he watches 
some hundreds of propertied representatives complacent- 
ly smoothing the way for the Socialists. 

There are moral epidemics as well as physical epi- 
demics; and the moral influence, or influenza, which now 
prevails so widely has a symptom in common with its 
physical analogue — it is accompanied by nervous pros- 
tration. Those seized by it are smitten with paralysis 
of reason. For how else can we account for the astound- 
ing fact that, day by day, the selectmen of the nation 
are empowering those who own nothing to say to those 
who own something, " We will decide what shall be 
done, and you shall pay for it." Actually it has come 
to this — that " collective wisdom " thinks society will 
prosper under that principle! 



A EECORD OF LEGISLATION 

The project described in the following letter, which 
appeared in The Times for i^ov. 24, 1894, is one I had 
long entertained; and the incident referred to in its 
opening paragraph prompted me no longer to delay set- 
ting it forth. 

The attention which has been drawn to Mr. Ilbert's 
proposal for a record of comparative legislation suggests 
to me the propriety of naming a project akin to it towards 
the execution of which a small step has been made. 

The project I refer to was originally conceived as a 
Mnd of supplement to the ^^ Descriptive Sociology '' (or 



A RECORD OF LEGISLATION. 137 

rather to one division of it), and might eventually have 
been entered upon had not the heavy losses year by year 
entailed on me by that compilation obliged me to dis- 
continue it. The end in view was to present briefly, in 
a tabulated form, the contents of our Statute-book from 
early days onwards, showing why each law was enacted, 
the effects produced, the duration, and, if repealed, the 
reasons for the repeal; the general purpose being that 
of making easily accessible the past experience useful 
for present guidance. The scheme in its developed form 
included like tabulations of the laws of other nations, 
which, while making comparisons possible, would enable 
us to profit by other legislative experiments than those 
of our ancestors. There was, however, no thought of 
dealing in like manner with the legislation of the Eng- 
lish-speaking races at large. 

In 1887 a tentative step was taken towards execution 
of this scheme. There existed at that time a weekly 
publication entitled Jus, established and edited by Mr. 
Wordsworth Donisthorpe, and partly devoted to the ex- 
posure of mischievous law-making. In pursuance of a 
suggestion which he says I made to him in 1873, he 
commenced giving instalments of such a digest as that 
described above; and these instalments were continued 
from September, 1887, to March, 1888, when the death 
of the periodical brought them to a close. 

A further step was subsequently taken. Between 
two and three years ago I named the project to a philan- 
thropic millionaire, and the interest he displayed in it 
led me to think that he would furnish funds for carry- 
ing it out. That he might be able to decide, however, 
it was needful that a finished portion of such a digest 
should be produced, and, in consultation with Mr. Donis- 
10 



138 A EECORD OF LEGISLATION. 

thorpe, a final form of table was agreed upon. Prompted 
by the expectation raised, Mr. Donisthorpe enlisted in 
the cause Mr. J. C. Spence, by whose labours, aided by 
bis own, a table was duly prepared, put in type, and 
printed. As is shown by the enclosed copy of this printed 
table, its parallel columns, severally filled up, are 
headed: — "Reasons for the Enactment"; "Provisions 
of Enactment"; "Date and Title"; "Effects"; "Re- 
peal." The period dealt with extended from 1328 to 
1349; and the table showed that nearly all the laws 
passed have been repealed. 

To complete the conception of the scheme it should 
be added that along with the whole series of tables, thus 
sampled, there was to be a subject-index, so classified 
into divisions and sub-divisions of matters, dealt with by 
law, that by reference to any particular division or sub- 
division, and then to the pages named as containing the. 
laws relating to it, it would be possible in a few minutes 
to learn what has been attempted in successive centuries 
in respect of any particular matter and with what re- 
sults. 

Unfortunately, however, when this sample table was 
put before my millionaire friend he expressed the opin- 
ion that he could devote his surplus revenues to pur- 
poses of more importance. The project thus dropped and 
nothing further has since been done. 

I am fully conscious that no such compilation could 
be made complete. Doubtless numerous Acts dealing 
with trivial matters would have to be omitted to prevent 
undue voluminousness ; and it is certain that in many 
cases the effects produced by Acts could not be definitely 
stated; though in these cases the mere fact of repeal 
would often have sufficient significance. But it is not. 



A KECORD OF LEGISLATION. 139 

therefore, to be concluded that an undertaking of this 
kind, imperfectly executed though it might be, should 
not be carried out as far as possible. It is true that poli- 
ticians and legislators who plume themselves on being 
" practical,'' and whose facts are furnished by Blue- 
books and Parliamentary Debates, would probably pay 
but small respect to these groups of facts furnished by 
the legislative experiments of our forefathers. Experi- 
ences of the day satisfy them. But those who take wider 
views and see that generalizations drawn from the en- 
tire past life of a nation are more to be trusted than 
these superficial generalizations, and that it is folly to 
make laws without inquiring what have been the results 
of essentially similar laws long ago passed and long ago 
abandoned, will see that such a work, containing easily 
accessible information, might have considerable effect 
in preventing some of the legislative blunders which are 
daily made. 

It is more for the purpose of putting this project on 
record than with the hope that it may be executed in 
our day that I write this letter. The ambitions which 
now prevail among the wealthy, and in fulfilment of 
which they spend large sums, may hereafter be replaced 
by ambitions of a higher kind, and then the needful 
funds may be forthcoming. 

In a leading article commenting on this letter, which 
appeared simultaneously, it was objected that it would 
be impracticable to ascertain the good or evil effects of 
past laws and the reasons why they had been repealed. 
Doubtless in many cases ascertainment would be difficult 
and even impossible. But if, as a general rule, the 



140 ANGLO-AMERICAN ARBITRATION. 

effects of laws cannot be ascertained, tlien it becomes im- 
possible to distinguish between good and bad laws; and 
if laws cannot be classed as good or bad by their ascer- 
tained effects, then one law is as good as another and 
legislation becomes meaningless. Even without press- 
ing this logical implication it may be replied that we 
ought to know what things have been attempted by laws 
and in what cases repeal soon followed or enforcement 
was found impracticable. 

In the hope that hereafter some man or men of 
adequate means will see that such a record, partially if 
not wholly practicable, would be of high value, I here 
append the sample table above referred to as having 
been arranged and filled up. 



AIsTGLO-AMEKICA:N' arbitkatiok 

On March 3, 1896, a short time before official steps 
were taken towards the establishment of permanent In- 
ternational Arbitration with the United States, a demon- 
stration in furtherance of that end was held at Queen's 
Hall, Sir James Stansfeld in the chair. In response to 
an appeal I sent the following letter, which was read 
at the meeting. 

Were it not that ill-health obliges me to shun all 
excitements, I should gladly attend the meeting to be 
held this evening at Queen's-hall in support of Anglo- 



D Title. 
, St. 1, c. 



. 14. 



3. 15. 



JO. , 

fc. l,c.3, 
4. 



c, 6. 

e. 8. 



Reasons for thb Esactmext. 



The Staples being found a hindrance to Ivado 



Provisions of Ekactmest. 



ng that thoy ! The length of e' very cloth of ray to be measnred by the King's aulnagers. 28 yards 
long by the 1 ist by six quarters wide. Coloured cloths 26 yards long by six and 
I a half quarter -s wide. Measuring to be done without soiling the cloth. All cloths 
I of defLTtivc n loi^urc to be forfeit to the King. 

ft'ho were in- 'All liiirs liiiiitei I to the time that they "ought" to be open. Merchants selling after 
I siich time to I be grievously punished. Lords permitting such extension of lime to 
forfeit the fai' rs to the King. 

for the Royal Family to take anything from anyone. Those of the 
pay a fair price, to be fixed by the constable and other good men 
They are to provide themselves with a warrant under seal. Any- 
hout warrant tu be treated as a common thief. 



Royal house 
of the district 
one taking wi 



FormerStatutesprohibitingreligiouspersonsfrom carrying It i 
valuables across the seas, having been disregarded : | 



Boat Fares having been 



Taverns increase in number, and sell wines good and bad 
at such price as they will, to the great hurt of the 

Former Statutes having failed to protect the Public from 
the Oppression of the King's Purveyors: 

Former Statutes having failed utterly : 

The Statute of Fairs having omitted to define penalties: 



Arbitrary monopolies having 



To keep bad money out of the kingdom, and I 
the supply of good money : 



To repress the raalico of the King's Purveyo 
mer Acts dealing with this eviF) : 

To protect Home Cloth Manufacture : 



) establish Uniform System of Weights and Measures : 



To put down Usury, on behalf of borrowers: 

The great Pestilence and the French Wars having raised 
the value of labour, and at the san.e time impoverished 
the propertied classes : 



irdained tl lat said Statutes shall in future be kept ! 



re-enai;ted: but all inquests under them are to be held by the local jus- 
by officers of the King's house. 

again enacted that religious men do make no carriage across the seas. 

Merchants sellilig before or after proper time of fairs to forfeit to the King double 
■ ■ sold. Informers to get half. 



ill merrliaiits, native and foreign, to be free to sell anything anywhere at any time 
take from a ton-igii iiriTchimt, King's Customs excepted. 



appcareth by the Rolls. 
)wling (taking wool 



3 a quarter. Merchants and .shippers to be 

be set up at Dover and other places, and 

es of exchange. No pilgrims to pass out of 

of a year's imprisonment. Innkeepers em- 

verv port, and to have a quarter the forfeit 



to be made onlv through the Sheriffs of Counties, 
is appended : "' Howbeit this is holden to be no S 



he realm) made a capital offence.' Royal Family 
" cloth, on pain of forfeiture and further pun- 
is to be imported.* Only Royal Family, prelates, and 
Foreign cloth-workei-s free to reside in England under 



The Treasury to send standard weights and measures to every county. Inspectors 
to be appointed in each county, with power to punish offenders. Informers to 
take quarter forfeit. 

, to censure them for their 



Every pei 
empl 



under forlv. not in trade nor having property, may be compelled 

serve at the wages paid in the 20th vear of the reign; the Lords 

prior claim to such service. Labourers refusing to servo or quitting * ■ 

■ ■ ■ ■ " -:--.--■_, — 'orfeit do 



ned. Persons paving higher wages to forfeit double 
be imprisoned. Persons selling food at unreasonable 



■es to forfeit double. If Mayors or Sheriffs neglect to enforce the penalt 
.liisticos are to compel them to pay treble the value. Anyone giving anything 
I beggar to be imprisoned. 



Edw. Ill, St. 
134fl. 



Though a great relief to the public, and especially to merahiuits. 
the Act struck a heavy blow at the King's revenue, the Cus- 
toms being evaded. 

Led to much oppression by officials. " Divers merchants, as well 
foreigners as denizens." ceased to briug cloths to market "to 
the great damage of the King and all Ills people." Petition. 
dated l:!."):j, charges the aulnagers with corrujition. 

Xo effect whatevrr, by reason of the penalties on merchants not 



Absohitelv ineffectual. 



he disregarded. (See a Edw. III., 



William of Malmsbury says that Gloucester wine was little 
inferior to the wines of Prance; but after these stringent 
regulations, little more is heard ot English Wines or vine- 
No effect. (.S'« 10 Edw. III., st. 2.) 

No effect : is again and again re-enacted. 

The fairs in themselves did not hurt the shopkeepers, but the 
monopoly whereby the shops in the neighbourhood were shut 
up during the fair for the increase of the King's tolls and 
dues. (A'ee Matthew Paris.) 



The money was remitted by bills of exchange, so that, although 
the Act 'to some extent prevented the export of the precious 
metals, to precisely that same extent it prevented their im- 

Innkeepers preferred their customers to the forfeit. 



. 1. I Knvghton (contemp.) says, Wool lay unsold for years and gro' 
' I ers were reduced to the greatest distress. , , , c 

Many Flemings accepted the invitation and founded the fir 
vool industries here. 



Dead letter. Commissioners " performed th 
with a very unpopular degree of severity. 
1819. 



Repealed in fact in 1332 by the re- 
establishnient of the Staples. 
Specifically repealed in 1863. 

The forfeiture clause repealed in 

1363. 

The whole Act repealed bv 49 Geo. 

III., c. 109. ■ 

Amended by 5 Edw. III., .st. 1, o. ."i. 



Re-enacted and amended the fol- 
lowing year. 
Repealed 1863. 



The preamble to 2.5 Elw. III., st. 2, states that this ordinance 
was disregarded bv all persons concerned, more especially the 
servants, who regarded only "their own ease and singular 



feit due to innkeepers raised fro: 

I fourth to a third by 17 Edw. 

III., 8 V. 



'Rep. 14 Edw.' III., s 



Ainended'31 Edw. III. 

'.. 92, as ' 

Re-enacted several times, but always 
inoperative, was finally repealed 



ANGLO-AMERICAN ARBITRATION. 141 

American arbitration. As it is, I can do no more than 
emphatically express approval of its aims. 

Savage as have been the passions commonly causing 
war, and great as have been its horrors, it has, through- 
out the past, achieved certain immense benefits. From 
it has resulted the predominance and spread of the most 
powerful races. Beginning with primitive tribes it has 
welded together small groups into larger groups, and 
again at later stages has welded these larger groups into 
still larger, until nations have been formed. At the 
same time military discipline has habituated wild men 
to the bearing of restraints, and has initiated that system 
of graduated subordination under which all social life is 
carried on. But though, along with detestation of the 
cruelties and bloodshed and brutalization accompanying 
war, we must recognize these great incidental benefits 
bequeathed by it heretofore, we are shown that hence- 
forth there can arise no such ultimate good to be set 
against its enormous evils. Powerful types of men now 
possess the world; great aggregates of them have been 
consolidated ; societies have been organized ; and through- 
out the future the conflicts of nations, entailing on 
larger scales than ever before death, devastation, and 
misery, can yield to posterity no compensating advan- 
tages. Henceforth social progress is to be achieved, not 
by systems of education, not by the preaching of this or 
that religion, not by insistence on a humane creed daily 
repeated and daily disregarded, but only by cessation 
from these antagonisms which keep alive the brutal ele- 
ments of human nature, and by persistence in a peace- 
ful life which gives unchecked play to the sympathies. 
In sundry places, and in various ways, I have sought to 
show that advance to higher forms of man and society 



142 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

essentially depends on the decline of militancy and the 
growth of industrialism. This I hold to be a political 
truth in comparison with which all other political truths 
are insignificant. 

I need scarcely add that such being my belief, I re- 
joice over the taking of any step which directly dimin- 
ishes the probability of war, and indirectly opens the 
way to further such steps. 



AGAINST THE METEIC SYSTEM. 

During the Parliamentary Session of 1896 an asso- 
ciation which has for some time past sought to establish 
the Metric System in England, had obtained from the 
Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade, a prom- 
ise that a Bill conforming to their desire should be 
presently introduced. Holding strongly the opinion that 
adoption of the Metric System is undesirable, I pub- 
lished in The Times, as special articles " Erom a Cor- 
respondent," four letters setting forth the reasons for this 
opinion; and immediately afterwards issued these let- 
ters in the form of a pamphlet, which was distributed to 
all members of the House of Commons and a few mem- 
bers of the House of Lords here, and also to members 
of the United States Congress, before which a Bill to 
establish the Metric System in America was pending. 
The contents of this pamphlet, including certain ex- 
planatory lines introducing the letters, are now repro- 
duced. 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 143 

On the 20tli inst., in answer to a question, Mr. Bal- 
four implied that the Government did not contemplate 
compulsory enactment of the metric system. At that 
date this pamphlet was in the press, and I was at first 
inclined to stay further progress; thinking that issue 
of it would be superfluous. Second thoughts, however, 
led to persistence. 

On the 24th March, at the Annual Meeting of the As- 
sociated Chambers of Commerce, a motion urging adopt- 
ion of the metric system was carried; and the Earl of 
Dudley, Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade, 
responding to its embodied wish, announced that " a Bill 
was now in course of preparation which would be brought 
in at no distant date, and which would give effect to the 
wishes expressed in the motion.'' The provisions of such 
a Bill should it be brought forward, will be subject to 
criticisms irrespective of their characters as compul- 
sory or permissive. Hence it seems still desirable to 
bring together, in a convenient form for reference, the 
facts and arguments which go to show that the metric 
system is ill-adapted for industrial and trading pur- 
poses. 

Of the four following letters, the first, which dis- 
cusses the claims of the English yard versus the French 
metre, may be passed over by those who have little time 
for reading, since it does not essentially concern the main 
issue. 

I. — Advocates of the metric system allege that all op- 
position to it results from " ignorant prejudice." This is 
far from being the fact. There are strong grounds for 
rational opposition, special and general; some already as- 
signed and others which remain to be assigned. I may 



144 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

fitly put first a carefully-reasoned expression of dissent 
from a late man of science of high authority. 

In 1863 Sir John Herschel published an essay in 
which, after referring to an attempt made during the pre- 
ceding Session to carry through Parliament a Bill estab- 
lishing the French metric system in this country, and an- 
ticipating that the Bill (said to have been confirmed in 
principle) would be again brought forward, he proceeded 
to contrast that system with a better one to be reached by 
making a minute modification in our own unit of meas- 
ure. The following extract will sufiiciently indicate the 
line of his argument: — 

" Let us now see how far the French metre as it stands 
fulfils the requirements of scientific and ideal perfection. 
It professes to be the 10,000,000th part of the quadrant 
of the meridian passing through France from Dunkirk 
to Formentera, and is, therefore, scientifically speaking, 
a local and national and not a universal measure . . . 
The metre, as represented by the material standard adopt- 
ed as its representative, is too short by a sensible and 
measurable quantity, though one which certainly might 
be easily corrected." 

[In the appendix it is shown that according to the 
latest measurements the error is 1-1 6 3rd part of an inch 
on the metre.] 

Sir John goes on to say that " were the question an 
open one what standard a new nation, unprovided with 
one and unfettered by usages of any sort, should select, 
there could be no hesitation as to its adoption (with that 
very slight correction above pointed out) " ; and he then 
continues — 

" The question now arising is quite another thing, viz. : — 
Whether we are to throw overboard an existing, estab- 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. I45 

lished, and, so to speak, ingrained system — adopt the 
metre as it stands for our standard — adopt, moreover, 
its decimal subdivisions, and carry out the change into 
all its train of consequences, to the rejection of our entire 
system of weights, measures, and coins. If we adopt 
the metre we cannot stop short of this. It would be 
a standing reproach and anomaly — a change for chang- 
ing's sake. The change, if we make it, must be com- 
plete and thorough. And this, in the face of the 
fact that England is beyond all question the nation 
whose commercial relations, both internal and exter- 
nal, are the greatest in the world, and that the Brit- 
ish system of measures is received and used, not only 
throughout the whole British Empire (for the Indian 
^ Hath ' or revenue standard is defined by law to be 
18 British Imperial inches), but throughout the whole 
!N^orth American continent, and (so far as the meas- 
ure of length is concerned) also throughout the Bus- 
sian Empire. . . . Taking commerce, population, and 
area of soil then into account, there would seem to be 
far better reason for our Continental neighbours to 
conform to our linear unit could it advance the same 
or a better a 'priori claim, than for the move to come 
from our side. (I say nothing at present of decimaliza- 
tion.) " 

Sir John Herschel then argues that the 10,000,000th 
part of the quadrant of a meridian, which is the specified 
length of the metre, is, on the face of it, not a good unit 
of measure, inasmuch as it refers to a natural dimension 
not of the simplest kind, and he continues thus : — 

" Taking the polai: axis of the earth as the best unit of 
dimension which the terrestrial spheroid affords (a better 
a priori unit than that of the metrical system), we have 
seen that it consists of 41,708,088 imperial feet, which, 
reduced to inches, is 500,497,056 imperial inches. J^ow 
this differs only by 2,944 inches, or by 82 yards, from 
500,500,000 such inches, and this would be the whole 



14:6 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

error on a lengtli of 8,000 miles, wliicli would arise from 
the adoption of this precise round number of inches for 
its length, or from making the inch, so defined, our fun- 
damental unit of length. 

After pointing out that the calculation required for 
correlating a dimension so stated with the Earth's axis, 
is shorter than that required for correlating a kindred 
dimension with the quadrant of a meridian. Sir John 
Herschel argues that — 

^' If we are to legislate at all on the subject, then the 
enactment ought to be to increase our present - standard 
yard (and, of course, all its multiples and submultiples) 
by one precise thousandth part of their present lengths, 
and we should then be in possession of a system of linear 
measure the purest and the most ideally perfect imagin- 
able. The change, so far as relates to any practical trans- 
action, commercial, engineering, or architectural, would 
be absolutely unfelt, as there is no contract for work 
even on the largest scale, and no question of ordinary 
mercantile profit or loss, in which one per mille in meas- 
ure or in coin would create the smallest difficulty." 

" Hitherto I have said nothing about our weights and 
measures of capacity. Xow, as they stand at present, 
nothing can be more clumsy and awkward than the nu- 
merical connection between these and our unit of length." 

And then, after pointing out the way in which the 
slight modification of the unit of linear measure describ- 
ed by him, could be readily brought into such relation 
with the measures of capacity and weight as to regularize 
them, he goes on: — 

" And thus the change which would place our system of 
linear measure on a perfectly faultless basis would, at 
the same time, rescue our weights and measures of capa- 
city from their present utter confusion." 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. I47 

In presence of the opinion thus expressed, and thus 
supported by evidonce, we ought, I think, to hear noth- 
ing more about " ignorant prejudice " as the only ground 
for opposition to the metric system, now being urged 
upon us. But, before proceeding to give adverse reasons 
of my own, let me quote a further objection — not, it may 
be, of the gravest kind, but one which must be taken into 
account. Writing from Washington, Professor H. A. 
Hazen, of the United States Weather Bureau, published 
in Nature of January 2, this year, a letter of which the 
following extracts convey the essential points: — 

'^ The metric system usually carries with it the Centi- 
grade scale on the thermometer, and here the whole En- 
glish-speaking world should give no uncertain sound. In 
meteorology it would be difficult to find a worse scale 
than the Centigrade. The plea that we must have just 
100° between the freezing and boiling points does not 
hold ; any convenient number of degrees would do. The 
Centigrade degree (l°.8f.) is just twice too large for 
ordinary studies. The worst difficulty, however, is in 
the use of the Centigrade scale below freezing. Any one 
who has had to study figures half of which have minus 
signs before them knows the amount of labour involved. 
To average a column of 30 figures half of which are 
minus takes nearly double the time that figures all on one 
side would take, and the liability to error is more than 
twice as great. I have found scores of errors in foreign 
publications w^here the Centigrade scale was employed, all 
due to this most inconvenient minus sign. If any one 
ever gets a ^ bee in his bonnet ' on this subject and desires 
to make the change on general principles it is very much 
to be hoped that he will write down a column of 30 fig- 
ures half below 32° F., then convert them to the Centi- 
grade scale, and try to average them. I am sure no En- 
glish meteorologist who has ever used the Centigrade 
scale will ever desire to touch it." 



148 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

But, now having noted these defects, which may per- 
haps be considered defects of detail, since they do not 
touch the fundamental principle of the metric system, I 
propose, with your permission, to show that its funda- 
mental principle is essentially imperfect and that its faults 
are great and incurable. 

II. — In reply to my enquiries, a French friend, mem- 
ber of the Conseil d'Etat, after giving instances of noncon- 
formity to the metric system, ended by saying: — ^^ En 
adoptant le systeme metrique decimal, on n'a pas fait 
disparaitre tout a fait les denominations anciennes, mais 
on en a fortement reduit I'emploi." 

It is now more than a century since, in the midst of 
the French revolution, the metric system was established. 
Adoption of it has been in the main compulsory. As 
French citizens have been obliged to use francs and cen- 
times, so must they have been obliged to use the State- 
authorized weights and measures. But the implication 
of the above statement is that the old customs have sur- 
vived where survival was possible: the people can still 
talk in sous and ask for fourths, and they do so. Doubt- 
less ^^ ignorant prejudice '' will be assigned as the cause 
for this. But one might have thought that, after three 
generations, daily use of the new system would have en- 
tailed entire disappearance of the old, had it been in all 
respects better. 

Allied evidence exists. While in the land of its origin 
the triumph of the metric system is still incomplete, in 
one of the lands of its partial adoption, the United States, 
the system has been departed from. It will be admitted 
that men engaged in active business are, by their expe- 
rience, rendered the best judges of convenience in mone- 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. I49 

tary transactions; and it will be admitted that a Stock 
Exchange is, above all places, the focus of business where 
facilitation is most important. Well, what has happened 
on the 'New York Stock Exchange? Are the quotations 
of prices in dollars, tenths, and cents? Not at all. They 
are in dollars, halves, quarters, eighths; and the list of 
prices in American securities in England shows that on 
the English Stock Exchange quotations are not only in 
quarters and eighths, but in sixteenths and even thirty- 
seconds. That is to say, the decimal divisions of the 
dollar are in both countries absolutely ignored, and the 
division into parts produced by halving, re-halving, and 
again halving is adopted. Worse has happened. A 
friend writes: — "When I w^as in. California some 20 
years ago the ordinary usage was to give prices in ' bits,' 
the eighth of a dollar — a ^ long bit ' was 15 cents, a ^ short 
bit ' was 10 cents. If one had a long bit and paid it one 
got no change — if one gave a short one no supplement 
was asked.'' Thus, lack of appropriate divisibility led to 
inexact payments — a retrogression. 

Perhaps an imaginary dialogue will most convenient- 
ly bring out the various reasons for dissent. Let us sup- 
pose that one who is urging adoption of the metric 
system, is put under cross-examination by a sceptical offi- 
cial. Some of his questions might run thus : — 

What do you propose to do with the circle? At 
present it is divided into 360 degrees, each degree into 60 
minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds. I suppose 
you would divide it into 100 degrees, each degree into 
100 minutes, and each of these into 100 seconds? 

The French have " decimalized the quadrant, but I 
fear their division will not be adopted. Astronomical 
observations throughout a long past have been registered 



150 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

by tlie existing mode of measurement, and works for nau- 
tical guidance are based upon it. It would be impractic- 
able to alter this arrangement. 

You are right. The arrangement was practically dic- 
tated by ]^ature. The division of the circle was the out- 
come of the Chaldean division of the heavens to fit their 
calendar: a degree being, within l-60th, equivalent to 
a day's apparent motion of the Sun on the ecliptic. And 
that reminds me that I do not find in your scheme any 
proposal for re-division of the year. Why do you not 
make 10 months instead of 12 ? 

A partial decimalization of the calendar was attempt- 
ed at the time of the French Revolution: a week of ten 
days was appointed, but the plan failed. Of course, the 
365 days of the year do not admit of division into tenths; 
or if ten months were made, there could be no tenths of 
these. Moreover, even were it otherwise, certain deeply- 
rooted customs stand in the way. Many trading trans- 
actions, especially the letting of houses and the hiring of 
assistants, have brought the quarter-year into such con- 
stant use that it would be very difiicult to introduce a re- 
division of the year into tenths. 

Just so; and it occurs to me that there is a deeper 
reason. Ignoring the slight ellipticity of the Earth's 
orbit, a quarter of a year is the period in which the Earth 
describes a fourth of its annual journey round the Sun, 
and the seasons are thus determined — the interval be- 
tween the shortest day and the vernal equinox, between 
that and the longest day, and so on with the other divi- 
sions. 

The order of Mature is doubtless against us here. 

It is against you here in a double way. ^ot only the 
behaviour of the Earth, but also the behaviour of the 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 151 

Moon conflicts with your scheme. By an astronomical 
accident it happens that there are 12 full moons, or ap- 
proximately 12 synodic lunations, in the year; and this, 
first recognized by the Chaldeans, originated the 12- 
month calendar^ which civilized peoples in general have 
adopted after compromising the disagreements in one 
or other way. But there is another division of time in 
which you are not so obviously thus restrained. You 
have not, so far as I see, proposed to substitute 10 hours 
for 12, or to make the day and night 20 hours instead of 
24. Why not? 

Centuries ago it might have been practicable to do 
this; but now that time-keepers have become universal 
we could not make such a re-division. We might get all 
the church-clocks altered, but people would refuse to re- 
place their old watches by new ones. 

I fancy conservatism will be too strong for you in an- 
other case — that of the compass. The divisions of this 
are, like many other sets of divisions, made by halving 
and re-halving and again halving, until 32 points are ob- 
tained. Is it that the habits of sailors are so fixed as to 
make hopeless the adoption of decimal divisions? 

Another reason has preventepl — the natural relations 
of the cardinal points. The intervals included between 
them are necessarily four right angles, and this precludes 
a division into tenths. 

Exactly. Here, as before, !N"ature is against you. 
The quadrant results from space-relations which are un- 
changeable and necessarily impose, in this as in other 
cases, division into quarters. Nature's lead has been fol- 
lowed by mankind in various ways. Beyond the quarter 
of a year we have the moon's four quarters. The quarter 
of an hour is a familiar division, and so is the quarter 



152 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

of a mile. Then there are the quartern loaf, and the 
quarter of a hundredweight. Though the yard is divid- 
ed into feet and inches, yet in every draper's shop yards 
are measured out in halves, quarters, eighths, and six- 
teenths or nails. Then we have a wine merchant's 
quarter-cask, we have the fourth of a gallon or quart, and, 
beyond that, we have for wine and beer, the quarter of a 
quart, or half -pint. 

Even that does not end the quartering of measures, 
for at the bar of a tavern quarterns of gin, that is quarter- 
pints of gin, are sold. Evidently we must have quarters. 
What do you do about them? Ten will not divide by 
four. 

The Americans have quarter dollars. 

And are inconsistent in having them. Just as in 
France, notwithstanding the metric system, they speak of 
a quarter of a litre, and a quarter of a livre, so in the 
United States, they divide the dollar into quarters, and in 
so doing depart from the professed mode of division in 
the very act of adopting it — depart in a double way. For 
the tenths of the dollar play but an inconspicuous part. 
They do not quote prices in dollars and dimes. I con- 
tinually see books advertised at 25c., 75c., $1.2 5c., 
$1.75c., and so forth; but I do" not see any advertised at 
$1.3 dimes or 4 dimes, &c. So that while not practically 
using the division theoretically appointed, they use the 
division theoretically ignored. 

It may be somewhat inconsistent, but there is no prac- 
tical inconvenience. 

I beg your pardon. If they had a 12-di vision of the 
dollar, instead of a 10-di vision, these prices $1.25 and 
$1.75 would be $1..3 and $1..9. And not only would 
there be a saving in speech, writing, and printing, but 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 153 

there would be a saving in calculation. Only one column 
of figures would need adding up where now there are 
two to add up; and, besides decreased time and trouble, 
there would be fewer mistakes. But leaving this case of 
the dollar, let us pass to other cases. Are we in all 
weights, all measures of length, all areas and volumes, to 
have no quarters? 

Quarters can always be marked as .25. 

So that in our trading transactions of every kind we 
are to make this familiar quantity, a quarter, by taking 
two-tenths and five-hundredths 1 But now let me ask a 
further question — What about thirds? In our daily life 
division by three often occurs. ISTot uncommonly there 
are three persons to whom equal shares of property have 
to be given. Then in talk about wills of intestates one 
hears of widows' thirds; and in Acts of Parliament the 
two-thirds majority often figures. Occasionally a buyer 
will say — ^^ A half is more than I want and a quarter is 
not enough; I will take a third.'' Frequently, too, of 
medicines, where half a grain is too much or not enough, 
one-third of a grain or two-thirds of a grain is ordered. 
Continually thirds are wanted. How do you arrange? 
Three threes do not make ten. 

We cannot make a complete third. 

You mean we must use a make-shift third, as a make- 
shift quarter is to be used? 

'No; unfortunately that cannot be done. We sig- 
nify a third by .3333, &c. 

That is to say, you make a third by taking 3 tenths, 
plus 3 hundredths, plus 3 thousandths, plus 3 ten-thou- 
sandths, and so on to infinity! 

Doubtless the method is unsatisfactory, but we can do 

no better. 
11 



154 AGAINST THE METEIC SYSTEM. 

J^evertlieless you really think it desirable to adopt 
universally for measurements of weight, length, area, 
capacity, value, a system which gives us only a make- 
shift quarter and no exact third ? 

These inconveniences are merely set-offs against the 
great conveniences. 

Set-offs you call them! To me it seems that the in- 
conveniences outweigh the conveniences. 

But surely you cannot deny those enormous evils en- 
tailed by our present mixed system, which the proposed 
change would exclude. 

I demur to your assertion. I have shown you that 
the mixed system would in large part remain. You can- 
not get rid of the established divisions of the circle and 
the points of the compass. You cannot escape from those 
quarters which the order of E"ature in several ways forces 
on us. You cannot change the divisions of the year and 
the day and the hour. It is impossible to avoid all these 
incongruities by your method, but here is another by 
which they may be avoided. 

You astonish me. TThat else is possible? 

I will tell you. We agree in condemning the exist- 
ing arrangements under which our scheme of numeration 
and our modes of calculation based on it, proceed in one 
way, while our various measures of length, area, capacity, 
weight, value, proceed in other ways. Doubtless, the 
two methods of procedure should be unified; but how? 
You assume that, as a matter of course, the measure-sys- 
tem should be made to agree with the numeration-system ; 
but it may be contended that, conversely, the numeration- 
system should be made to agree with the measure-system 
— with the dominant measure-system, I mean. 

I do not see how that can be done. 



AGAINST THE METHIC SYSTEM. 155 

Perhaps you will see if you join me in looking back 
upon the origins of these systems. Unable to count by 
giving a name to each additional unit, men fell into the 
habit of counting by groups of units and compound 
-groups. Ten is a bundle of fingers, as you may still see 
in the Koman numerals, where the joined fingers of one 
hand and the joined fingers of the two hands are sym- 
bolized. Then, above these, the numbering was con- 
tinued by counting two tens, three tens, four tens, &c., or 
20, 30, 40 as we call them, until ten bundles of ten had 
been reached. Proceeding similarly, these compound 
bundles of tens, called hundreds, were accumulated until 
there came a doubly-compound bundle of a thousand; 
and so on. Now, this process of counting by groups and 
compound groups, tied together by names, is equally 
practicable with other groups than 10. We may form 
our numerical system by taking a group of 12, then 12 
groups of 12, then 12 of these compound groups; and so 
on as before. The 12-group has an enormous advantage 
over the 10-group. Ten is divisible only by 5 and 2. 
Twelve is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. If the fifth in the 
one case and the sixth in the other be eliminated as of no 
great use, it remains that the one group has three times 
the divisibility of the other. Doubtless it is this great 
divisibility which has made men in such various cases 
fall into the habit of dividing into twelfths. For beyond 
the 12 divisions of the zodiac and the originally-asso- 
ciated twelve-month, and beyond the twelfths of the day, 
and beyond those fourths — sub-multiples of 12 — which 
in sundry cases Nature insists upon, and which in so many 
cases are adopted in trade, we have 12 ounces to the pound 
troy, 12 inches to a foot, 12 lines to the inch, 12 sacks to 
the last; and of multiples of 12 we have 24 grains to the 



156 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

pennjweiglit, 24 sheets to the quire. Moreover, large 
sales of small articles are habitually made by the gross 
(12 times 12) and great gross (12X12X12). Again, we 
have made our multiplication table go up to 12 times 12, 
and we habitually talk of dozens. ]N'ow, though these 
particular 12-di visions are undesirable, as being most of 
them arbitrary and unrelated to one another, yet the facts 
make it clear that a general system of twelfths is called 
for by trading needs and industrial needs; and such a 
system might claim something like universality, since 
it would fall into harmony with these natural divisions 
of twelfths and fourths which the metric system neces- 
sarily leaves outside as incongruities. 

But what about the immense facilities which the 
method of decimal calculation gives us? You seem ready 
to sacrifice all these? 

'Not in the least. It needs only a small alteration in 
our method of numbering to make calculation by groups 
of 12 exactly similar to calculation by groups of 10; 
yielding just the same facilities as those now supposed to 
belong only to decimals. This seems a surprising state- 
ment; but I leave you to think about it, and if you can- 
not make out how it may be I will explain presently. 

III. — The promised explanation may most conveni- 
ently be given by reproducing, with various alterations 
and additions, a letter I wrote about the matter last No- 
vember twelvemonth to a distinguished man of science. 
Omitting the name, the letter ran thus: — 

" The enclosed memoranda concerning advantages to 
be derived from the use of 12 as a fundamental number, 
were written more than 50 years ago, and have since been 
lying unused among my papers. 



AGAINST THE METEIC SYSTEM. 157 

" I send them to you because you have lately been ex- 
pressing a strong opinion in favour of the metric system, 
and of course your opinion will weigh heavily. From 
the days when the accompanying memoranda were set 
down, I have never ceased to regret the spreading adop- 
tion of a system which has such great defects, and I hold 
that its universal adoption would be an immense disaster. 

" Of course I do not call in question the great advan- 
tages to be derived from the ability to carry the method 
of decimal calculation into quantities and values, and of 
course I do not call in question the desirableness of having 
some rationally-originated unit from which all measures 
of lengths, weights, forces, &c., shall be derived. That, 
as promising to end the present chaos, the metric system 
has merits, goes without saying. But I object to it on 
the ground that it is inconvenient for various purposes 
of daily life, and that the conveniences it achieves may 
be achieved without entailing any inconveniences. 

" One single fact should suffice to give us pause. 
This fact is that, notwithstanding the existence of the de- 
cimal notation, men have in so many cases fallen into sys- 
tems of division at variance with it, and especially duode- 
cimal division. JSTumeration by tens and multiples of 
ten has prevailed among civilized races from early times. 
What, then, has made them desert this mode of numer- 
ation in their tables of weights, measures, and values? 
They cannot have done this without a strong reason. The 
strong reason is conspicuous — the need for easy division 
into aliquot parts. For a long period they were hindered 
in regularizing their weights and measures by the cir- 
cumstance that these had been derived from organic 
bodies and organic lengths — the carat and grain, for in- 
stance, or the cubit, foot, and digit. Organic weights 



158 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

and lengths thus derived were not definite multiples one 
of another, and where they were approximate multiples 
the numbers of these were irregular — would not conform 
to any system. But there early began, as among the 
Chaldeans, arrangements for bringing these natural meas- 
ures into commensurable relations. By sexagesimal di- 
vision (60 being the first number divisible both by 10 and 
12) the Babylonian cubit was brought into relation with 
the Babylonian foot. The stages of change from nation 
to nation and from age to age, cannot, of course, be 
traced; but it suffices to recognize the fact that the ten- 
dency has been towards systems of easily-divisible quan- 
tities — the avoirdupois pound of 16 ounces, for instance, 
which is divisible into halves, into quarters, into eighths. 
But, above all, men have gravitated towards a 12-division, 
because 12 is more divisible into aliquot parts than any 
other number — halves, quarters, thirds, sixths; and their 
reason for having in so many cases adopted the duode- 
cimal division, is that this divisibility has greatly facili- 
tated their transactions. When counting by twelves in- 
stead of by tens, they have been in far fewer cases 
troubled by fragmentary numbers. There has been an 
economy of time and mental effort. These practical ad- 
vantages are of greater importance than the advantages 
of theoretical completeness. Thus, even were there no 
means of combining the benefits achieved by a method 
like that of decimals with the benefits achieved by duode- 
cimal division, it would still be a question whether the 
benefits of the one with its evils were or were not to be 
preferred to the benefits of the other with its evils — a ques- 
tion to be carefully considered before making any change. 
" But now the important fact, at present ignored, and 
to which I draw your attention, is that it is perfectly pos- 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 159 

sible to have all the facilities which a method of notation 
like that of decimals gives, along with all the facilities 
which duodecimal division gives. It needs only to intro- 
duce two additional digits for 10 and 11 to unite the ad- 
vantages of both systems. The methods of calculation 
which now go along with the decimal system of numera- 
tion would be equally available were 12 made the basic 
number instead of 10. In consequence of the association 
of ideas established in them in early days and perpetually 
repeated throughout life, nearly all people suppose that 
there is something natural in a method of calculation by 
tens and compoundings of tens. But I need hardly say 
that this current notion is utterly baseless. The existing 
system has resulted from the fact that we have five fingers 
on each hand. If we had had six on each there would 
never have been any trouble. E'o man would ever have 
dreamt of numbering by tens, and the advantages of duo- 
decimal division with a mode of calculation like that of 
decimals, would have come as a matter of course. 

" Even while writing I am still more struck with the 
way in which predominant needs have affected our usages. 
Take our coinage as an example. Beginning at the bot- 
tom we have the farthing (J penny), the halfpenny and 
penny (or one-twelfth of a shilling); next we have the 
threepenny piece (^ shilling), the 6d. piece (^ shilling), 
and the shilling; and then above them we have the 
eighth of a pound (2s. Qd.), the quarter of a pound (5s.), 
and half-pound (10s.). That is to say, daily usage has 
made us gravitate into a system of doubling and again 
doubling and re-doubling; and when, until recently, 
there existed the 4:d. piece, we had the convenience of a 
third as well as a half and a quarter — a convenience 
which would have been retained but for the likeness of 



160 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

the Sd. and 4:d. coins. And observe that this system of 
multiples and sub-multiples has its most conspicuous illus- 
tration in the commonest of all processes — retail pay- 
ments — and that, too, in the usages of a nation which is 
above all others mercantile. 

[Since this letter was written I have been struck by 
the fact that the ancient wise men of the East and the 
modern working men of the TTest, have agreed upon the 
importance of great divisibility in numerical groups. 
The Chaldean priests, to whom we owe so much,, doubtless 
swayed in part by their astronomical arrangements, 
adopted the sexagesimal system of numeration, which at 
the same time facilitates in a special manner the division 
into aliquot parts. For 60 may be divided by ten differ- 
ent numbers— 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30. From 
this significant fact turn now to the fact presented in our 
ordinary foot-rule. Each of its 12 inches is halved and 
re-halved, giving halves, quarters, and eighths. And then, 
if we consider the sub-divided foot as a whole, it gives 
us ten sets of aliquot parts. Beyond its 12ths the divi- 
sions yield J, J, J, i, J (IJ inch), -^ (| inch), ^ (^ inch), 
■gV (f inch), and ^^S" (i inch). And this ordinary mode 
of dividing the foot-rule results from the experience of 
centuries; for builders, carpenters, and mechanics, al- 
ways buying footrules which best serve their needs, have 
gradually established the most useful set of divisions. 
And yet, though the early man of science and the modern 
men of practice are at one in recognizing the importance 
of great divisibility, it is proposed to establish a form 
of measure characterized by relative indivisibility!] 

" 'Now it seems to me that the two facts — first, that in 
early days men diverged from the decimal division into 
modes of division which furnished convenient aliquot 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 161 

parts, and second, that where, as in America, the decimal 
system has been adopted for coinage, they have in the 
focus of business fallen into the use of aliquot parts in 
spite of the tacit governmental dictation — not only prove 
the need" for this mode of division, but imply that, if the 
metric system were universally established, it would be 
everywhere traversed by other systems. To ignore this 
need, and to ignore the consequences of disregarding it, 
is surely unwise. Inevitably the result must be a pre- 
vention of the desired unity of method: there will be 
perpetual inconveniences from the conflict of two irre- 
concilable systems. [At the time this prophecy was 
made, I did not know that in California the " long bits " 
and ^^ short bits " of the dollar, already illustrated this 
conflict of systems and its evils.] 

" I fully recognize the difficulties that stand in the 
way of making such changes as those indicated — difficul- 
ties greater than those implied by the changes which 
adoption of the metric system involves. The two have 
in common to overcome the resistance to altering our 
tables of weights, measures, and values; and they both 
have the inconvenience that all distances, quantities, and 
values, named in records of the past, must be differently 
expressed. But there would be futher obstacles in the 
way of a 12-notation system. To prevent confusion dif- 
ferent names and different symbols would be needed for 
the digits, and to acquire familiarity with these, and 
with the resulting multiplication-table would, of course, 
be troublesome: perhaps not more troublesome, however, 
than learning the present system of numeration and cal- 
culation as carried on in another language. There would 
also be the serious evil that, throughout all historical 
statements, the dates would have to be differently ex- 



162 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

pressed; though this inconvenience, so long as it lasted, 
would be without difficulty met by enclosing in paren- 
thesis in each case the equivalent number in the old no- 
tation. But, admitting all this, it may still be reasonably 
held that it would be a great misfortune were there estab- 
lished for all peoples and for all time a very imperfect 
system, when with a little more trouble a perfect system 
might be established." 

Thus far the letter. And now let me sum up the evi- 
dence. Professedly aiming to introduce uniformity of 
method, the metric system cannot be brought into har- 
mony with certain unalterable divisions of space nor with 
certain natural divisions of time, nor with the artificial 
divisions of time which all civilized men have adopted. 
As 10 is divisible only by 5 and 2 (of which the resulting 
fifth is useless), its divisibility is of the smallest; and 
having only a makeshift fourth and no exact third, it 
will not lend itself to that division into aliquot parts so 
needful for the purposes of daily life. From this indi- 
visibility it has resulted that, though men from the begin- 
ning had in their ten fingers the decimal system ready 
made, they have, in proportion as civilization has pro- 
gressed, adopted, for purposes of measurement and ex- 
change, easily divisible groups of units; ^nd in a recent 
case, where the 10-di vision of money has been imposed 
upon them, they have, under pressure of business needs, 
abandoned it for the system of division into halves, quart- 
ers, eighths, sixteenths. On the other hand, the number 
12 is unique in its divisibility — yields two classes of ali- 
quot parts ; and for this reason has been in so many cases 
adopted for weights, measures, and values. At the same 
time it harmonizes with those chief divisions of time 
which ^N'ature has imposed upon us and with the artifi- 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 163 

cial divisions of time by which men have supplemented 
them; while its sub-multiple, 4, harmonizes with certain 
unalterable divisions of space, and with those divisions 
into quarters which men use in so many cases. Mean- 
while, if two new digits for 10 and 11 be used, there arises 
a system of calculation perfectly parallel to the system 
known as decimals, and yielding just the same facilities 
for computation — sometimes, indeed, greater facilities, 
for, as shown in the memoranda named in the above 
letter, it is even better for certain arithmetical processes. 

Do I think this system will be adopted? Certainly 
not at present — certainly not for generations. In our 
days the mass of people, educated as well as uneducated, 
think only of immediate results: their imaginations of 
remote consequences are too shadowy to influence their 
acts. Little effect will be produced upon them by show- 
ing that, if the metric system should be established uni- 
versally, myriads of transactions every day will for untold 
thousands of years be impeded by a very imperfect sys- 
tem. But it is, I think, not an unreasonable belief that 
further intellectual progress may bring the conviction 
that since a better system would facilitate both the 
thoughts and actions of men, and in so far diminish the 
friction of life throughout the future, the task of estab- 
lishing it should be undertaken. 

Hence I contend that adoption of the metric system, 
while it would entail a long period of trouble and confu- 
sion, would increase the obstacles to the adoption of a 
perfect system — perhaps even rendering them insuper- 
able — and that, therefore, it will be far better to submit 
for a time to the evils which our present mixed system 
entails. 

P.S. — A mathematician and astronomer, who writes 



164 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

— " I am mucli interested in your letters and agree with 
almost everything/' makes some comments. He says: — 
" It has always been an astonishing thing to me that the 
advocates of decimalization do not perceive that its only 
advantage is in computation. In every other process it 
is a detriment." Concerning the 12-notation, he re- 
marks that '' the advantages are notorious to all mathe- 
maticians.'' Apparently less impressed than I am with 
the advance of knowledge from uncivihzed times to our 
own and the breaking down of habits, now goiijg on with 
accelerating rapidity, he does not share the expectation 
that the 12-notation '^ will ever be adopted in practice ": 
the obstacles to the change being too great. But without 
opposing the metric system, as threatening to stand in the 
way of a more perfect system, he opposes it as intrinsically 
undesirable, saying: — " I think that all that can be done 
is to make our coinage and measures as little decimal as 
possible, and our computation as decimal as may be." 

TV. — From one who every month has to act as audi- 
tor, I have received a letter in which he says: — " I had to 
go over more than £20,000 of accounts yesterday and 
was very thankful that it was not in francs." 

This statement, coming from a man of business, has 
suggested to me the question — By whose advice is it that 
the metric system of weights, measures, and values is to 
be adopted? Is it by the advice of those who spend their 
lives in weighing and measuring and receiving payments 
for goods? Is it that the men who alone are concerned 
in portioning out commodities of one or other kind to 
customers and who have every minute need for using this 
or that division or sub-division of weights or measures, 
have demanded to use the decimal system? Far from it. 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 165 

I venture to say that in no case has the retail trader been 
consulted. There lies before me an imposing list of the 
countries that have followed the lead of France. It is 
headed '^ Progress of the Metric System." It might fitly 
have been headed " Progress of Bureaucratic Coercion." 
When fifty years after its nominal establishment in 
Prance, the metric system was made compulsory it was 
not because those who had to measure out commodities 
over the counter wished to use it but because the Govern- 
ment commanded them to do so; and when it was adopt- 
ed in Germany under the Bismarckian regime, we may 
be sure that the opinions of shopkeepers were not asked. 
Similarly elsewhere, its adoption has resulted from the 
ofiicial will and not from the popular will. 

Why has this happened? For an answer we must go 
back to the time of the French Revolution, when scien- 
tific men were entrusted with the task of forming a ra- 
tional system of weights, measures, and values for uni- 
versal use. The idea was a great one, and, allowing for 
the fundamental defect on which I have been insisting, 
it was admirably carried out. As this defect does not di- 
minish its great convenience for scientific purposes the 
system has been gradually adopted by scientific men all 
over the world: the great advantage being that measure- 
ments registered by a scientific man of one nation are 
without any trouble made intelligible to men of other 
nations. Evidently moved by the desire for human wel- 
fare at large, scientific men have been of late years urg- 
ing that the metric system should be made universal, in 
the belief that immense advantages, like those which they 
themselves find, will be found by all who are engaged 
in trade. Here comes in the error. They have identi- 
fied two quite different requirements. For what pur- 



166 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

pose does tlie man of science use tlie metric system ? Tor 
processes of measurement. For what purpose is the 
trader to use it ? For processes of measurement 'plus pro- 
cesses of exchange. This additional element alters the 
problem essentially. It matters not to a chemist whether 
the volumes he specifies in cubic-centimetres or the 
weights he gives in grammes, are or are not easily divisi- 
ble with exactness. Whether the quantities of liquids or 
gases which the physicist states in litres can or cannot be 
readily divided into aliquot parts is indifferent And to 
the morphologist or microscopist who writes down dimen- 
sions in sub-divisions of the metre, the easy divisibility of 
the lengths he states is utterly irrelevant. But it is far 
otherwise with the man who all daylong has to portion out 
commodities to customers and receive money in return. 
To satisfy the various wants of those multitudes whose 
purchases are in small quantities, he needs measures that 
fall into easy divisions and a coinage which facilitates 
calculation and the giving of change. Force him to 
do his business in tenths and he will inevitably be im- 
peded. 

^^ But you forget that the metric system is approved 
by many mercantile men and that its adoption is urged 
by Chambers of Commerce." Xo, I have not forgotten; 
and if I had I should have been reminded of the fact by 
the fears now expressed that our commerce will suffer if 
we do not follow in the steps of sundry other nations. 
The fears are absurd. French and German merchants, 
when sending goods to England, find no difficulty in 
marking them or invoicing them in English measures. 
And if English merchants imply that they are too stiipid 
to follow the example in a converse way, they can scarcely 
expect to be believed. Surely the manufacturers who 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 167 

supply tliem with piece-goods will make these up in so 
many metres instead of in so many yards if asked to do 
so; and similarly in all cases. Or if not, it needs but a 
table on the wall in the clerks' office, giving in parallel 
columns the equivalents of quantity in English denomi- 
nations and French denominations, to make easy the 
needful invoicing and labelling. But it is not on this 
flimsiest of reasons that I wish chiefly to comment. The 
fact here to be specially emphasized is that merchants 
are not in the least concerned with the chief uses of the 
metric system. Their bales and chests and casks contain 
large quantities — dozens of yards, hundredweights, gal- 
lons. They do not deal with sub-divisions of these. 
Whether the retailer is or is not facilitated in portioning 
out these large quantities into small quantities is a ques- 
tion having no business interest for them. More than 
this is true. E^ot only have they never in their lives mea- 
sured out fractional amounts in return for small sums 
of money, but they have rarely witnessed the process. 
Their domestic supplies are obtained by deputy, usually 
in considerable quantities; and neither behind the coun- 
ter nor before it have they with frequency seen the need 
for easy divisibility into aliquot parts. Their testimony 
is supposed to be that of practical men, while'in respect 
of the essential issue — the use of weights and measures 
for retail trade — they have had no practice whatever. 

See then the strange position. The vast majority of 
our population cgnsists of working people, people of nar- 
row incomes, and the minor shopkeepers who minister to 
their wants. And these wants daily lead to myriads of 
purchases of small quantities for small sums, involving 
fractional divisions of measures and money — measuring 
transactions probably fifty times as numerous as those 



168 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

of the men of science and the wholesale traders put to- 
gether. These two sraall classes, however, unfamiliar 
with retail buying and selling, have decided that they will 
be better carried on by the metric system than by the ex- 
isting system. Those who have no experimental knowl- 
edge of the matter propose to regulate those who have! 
The methods followed by the experienced are to be re- 
arranged by the inexperienced! 

Intentionally or unintentionally those who have bad 
cases to defend very commonly raise false issues. It has 
been so in this case. Such responses as I have seen to the 
foregoing arguments have assumed or asserted that I up- 
hold our existing system of weights, measures, and mon- 
eys; and they assert this because I have pointed to var- 
ious conveniences which these have. But if this ascrip- 
tion does not result from a wilful misrepresentation, it 
results from an unintelligent attention to the argument. 
The chaotic character of our modes of specifying quan- 
tities is as manifest to me as to the metricists. TVTien 
instancing as convenient these or those tables now in use, 
I have referred to the mode of division; not at all in- 
tending to imply approval of the particular sizes or 
amounts of the divisions : these being in many cases very 
undesirable. 

All who do not perversely misinterpret must surely re- 
cognize my thesis as having been that, rather than estab- 
lish a fundamentally imperfect system based upon 10 as 
a radix, it will be better to wait until we can change our 
system of numeration into one with 12 as a radix; and 



AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 169 

tlien on that to base our system of weights, measures, 
and values: tolerating present inconveniences as well as 
we may. Opponents do not deny that a 12-system of nu- 
meration would be better than is the 10-system, and do 
not deny that weights, measures, and values would be 
more conveniently expressed in terms of a 12-system. 
Their contention is that the change to a 12-system of nu- 
meration is not practicable. Tacitly they assume that be- 
cause people are not now sufficiently intelligent to per- 
ceive its advantages, and to take the trouble of making 
the needful changes, they never will be sufficiently in- 
telligent. 

It is strange that with past experiences before them 
their imagination should thus fail them. See what les- 
sons history reads us. If our cannibal ancestors, who in 
the forests of ^N^orthern Europe two thousand or more 
years ago sheltered in wigwams and clothed themselves 
in skins, had been told that some of their descendants 
would live in massive towers of stone and cover their bod- 
ies with metal plates, explanations, even could they have 
been understood, would have left them utterly incredul- 
ous. Or, again, if the mediaeval barons had been told 
that in a few centuries after their deaths, nobles, instead 
of needing castles and armour, would live in houses which 
even a solitary thief could break into, and would walk 
about unarmed without attendants, they would have 
thought their informant insane. Yet with such cases be- 
fore them, cultivated classes in our own day suppose that 

future usages will be like present ones, and that the cul- 
13 



170 AGAINST THE METRIC SYSTEM. 

ture, ideas, and sentiments now prevailing will always 
prevail; and they suppose this though men's feelings 
and thoughts have become more plastic than they ever 
were before. They cannot conceive that hereafter people 
may think it worth while to make a revolution (not much 
more troublesome than that which they advocate) for the 
purpose of greatly facilitating the bilhons of transactions, 
commercial, industrial, and other, daily gone through by 
mankind. 

If, as seems probable, they should have their way — if 
the Act of Parliament just passed, giving permission to 
use the Metric System, should presently be followed, as 
they intend it to be, by an Act making the use of the 
Metric System compulsory — if in the United States as 
well as in England and it colonies, governments prompt- 
ed by bureaucracies, but not consulting the people and 
clearly against their wishes, should make universal this 
gravely defective system, very possibly it will remain 
thereafter unalterable. When the trade within each na- 
tion as well as all international commerce has been uni- 
fied in method, the obstacles to a radical change may be 
insuperable; even though most should come to see the 
great superiority of another method. And should this 
happen, then men of the future looking back on men of 
the present will say of them that, having before them a 
system which they recognized as relatively perfect, they 
deliberately imposed a relatively imperfect system on all 
mankind for all time. 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 171 



THE " ISTET-PEICE '' SYSTEM OF BOOK- 
SELLIISTG. 

In 1892 there was commenced a movement for re- 
establishing the system of fixed retail prices for books — 
a system which in 1852 had been abolished by agreement 
between authors, publishers, and the book-trade. A re- 
versal of the free-trade policy which, whether or not bene- 
ficial to dealers in books, had proved beneficial alike to 
authors and the public threatened to be a disaster, and 
I was prompted to do something towards making known 
the impending evils. To this end I sent to The Times 
the following communication which, under the title of 
^' Publishers, Booksellers, and the Public," made its ap- 
pearance as " From a Correspondent " on October 24, 
1894. 

Amid various social changes conspicuous enough to 
attract public attention, there has recently commenced 
an unobstrusive change which, trivial as it may appear 
to many, is likely to produce serious results. It is a 
change which affects simultaneously the interests of book- 
buyers and of authors. That the nature of it may be 
fully understood, the system in force forty odd years ago, 
unknown to most and forgotten by others, must be re- 
called. 

In 1852 a crisis in the book-trade was produced by a 
published account of the system established for the be- 



172 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

nefit of booksellers. Details aside, the effect of this 
system, as shown by a letter which appeared in The Times 
on April 5, 1852, was that, supposing a book to 
be advertised at 12s., the sum of 7s. 4d. went to pay for 
the cost of production, mental and mechanical, and 4s. 
8d. went to pay for conveyance to the reader. While 
60 per cent, had to cover the charges for type-setting, 
press-work, paper, binding, advertising, and author's 
profit, 40 per cent, was charged for porterage! The 
" Committee of the Book Trade," avowedly to protect 
trade interests, excommunicated all who sold books at 
lower rates of profit than those prescribed. Any one who 
disobeyed was prevented, when possible, from obtaining 
supplies of books for sale; and occasionally recalcitrant 
retailers were thus ruined. Meanwhile, there were a few 
retailers who successively resisted the dictation, and main- 
tained a chronic feud with the committee. But their 
success qualified only in small measure the result 
achieved, which was that of raising the prices of books 
to amounts considerably above those needful to yield the 
retail booksellers adequate profits. In Tlie Times for 
April 16 there was published a leading article adverse 
to the proceedings of the combination. 

Shortly afterwards a meeting of authors was held, 
presided over by Mr. Charles Dickens and attended by 
leading representatives of science and literature, whose 
names were in those days familiar. Resolutions condem- 
natory of the regulations enforced by the Booksellers' 
Association were passed, and a conflict with the Asso- 
ciation arose. Very soon an arbitration was agreed upon, 
and Lord Campbell, Dean Milman, and Mr. Grote were 
chosen as arbitrators. They gave their decision in favour 
of the authors, and the coercive regulations were forth- 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 1Y3 

with abolished. That is to say, while the rates of profit 
allowed to booksellers the same, the enforcement of those 
rates ceased. The retail distributor was no longer perse- 
cuted for making unauthorized discounts. 

All know what has since happened, or rather all know 
what have been the usages for the last generation, though 
they may not know how they arose. The practice of 
allowing a discount of 2d. in the Is. from the advertised 
price of a book was quickly established, and after a time 
the discount was by many, and eventually by most, re- 
tailers increased to 3d. in the Is., or 25 per cent. That 
benefit has resulted cannot well be questioned. Decrease 
in the price of a book from, say, 12s. to 9s. must have 
added considerably to the number of copies sold. And, 
while readers have gained by this greater accessibility, 
authors have gained by the increased sales; for the 
author's profit per copy has remained practically the 
same. It may be true that the cheapening of books has 
not been wholly advantageous. The wider diffusion, 
given to sensational and trashy literature has been an evil. 
But English classics of every kind have been brought 
within the reach of all by the issue of multitudinous edi- 
tions at extremely low prices. There has been even a 
more important effect. Grave but enlightening books, 
scientific, technical, or philosophical, and volumes of dry 
but instructive facts, have been spread abroad, and many 
such have been brought into existence which previously 
could not have existed. While the sales of them were 
narrowed by artificially enhanced prices, numerous works 
of thought and information remained unwritten or un- 
published. Publishers refused them, and authors dared 
not issue them at their own risks, unless they were able 
to bear the prospective losses. Increased sales consequent 



174: THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

on lower prices have thiis made possible nmcli of the 
best literature which would else have been impossible. 

These advantages are now being furtively destroyed. 
Some three years ago, in certain advertisements of books, 
the word " net '^ was inserted after the price, implying 
that no discount would be allowed. Such notices, at first 
chiefly given in connection with scientific and technical 
books, have been spreading. Other publishers than the 
one who commenced the practice have followed his lead, 
and other classes of books have been gradually included, 
until now books for popular reading, and even novels, 
are advertised with this warning word. It is no doubt 
intended that, as soon as the public become accustomed 
to it, this practice shall be made universal. The retail- 
er's rate of profit is no longer to be endangered by the 
competition of his fellows. Already coercive measures, 
like those which a generation ago maintained this system, 
are growing up. Booksellers who have allowed small 
discounts from ^' net " prices have received warnings that, 
if they do so again, supplies of books will be denied to 
them. It is true that the profit now to be secured to the 
retail distributor is less than was secured before. Still 
it is in most cases twice as much as that which contents 
one who allows 25 per cent discount. But the essential 
question does not concern the amount of the prescribed 
profit. The essential question is whether a fixed rate 
shall be maintained. When the growing practice has 
been fully re-established the rate of profit may be raised 
without difficulty. As, in the past, publishers who did 
not yield to the Booksellers' Association were punished 
either by the igTioring of their books or by the practice 
of replying to customers who ordered them that they 
were " out of print " or "at the binder's," so, in future 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OP BOOKSELLING. 175 

there may be punislimeiit for publishers who resist 
any increased claims which the Association makes. 
Competition once excluded, the monopoly may dic- 
tate its own terms. Doubtless we shall hear a de- 
fence of these resuscitated regulations. Some will 
say that retailers should be properly paid for their 
work, and that underselling by one another does them 
great mischief. Others will say that publishers bene- 
fit by giving retailers a sufficient stimulus to push their 
books. The authors, too, will be said to gain by the 
increased sales resulting. It will even possibly be 
urged that the public are benefitted by having books 
brought under their notice better than they would 
otherwise be. To these and other pleas there is a brief 
but sufficient reply. They were urged a generation 
ago, and a generation ago they were examined and 
rejected. 

What will happen remains to be seen. Possibly, or 
even probably, the influences which sufficed to abolish 
this trade-union dictation in 1852 will suffice to prevent 
its revival in 1894. 

The foregoing communication of course initiated a 
controversy. The following is the first of the letters 
which I wrote in reply to opponents. It was entitled 
" The Bookseller's Trade Union,'' and in common with 
all my subsequent letters on this subject was signed " A 
Free Trader." It was published in The Times for Octo- 
ber 26, 1894. 

There are always reasons to be given for every policy, 
however really indefensible, which to those who urge 
them seem quite sufficient, or which they profess to think 



1Y6 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

quite sufficient. The two correspondents wlio write 
about the book-trade in your issue of to-day furnish ex- 
amples. 

The retail booksellers, poor fellows, are being ruined 
by competition with one another, says Mr. Heinemann, 
and must be prevented from competing — " those who 
have to live by books shall be able to live by them." 
But why not those who have to live by tea and sugar? 
Why not those whose business is the making of clothes? 
Does not one grocer injure another by selling. coffee and 
currants at reduced prices? Is it not one tailor's income 
diminished if another tailor advertises coats and trou- 
sers at lower rates? Carry out this trade-union idea to 
its logical outcome, and we arrive at universal protec- 
tion. The authorized trader shall be protected against 
the unauthorized trader, whether he be a foreigner, or 
whether he be a fellow-citizen. All industrial progress 
would be stopped if this system were consistently carried 
out. 

Messrs. Hatchards ascribe to the public a remarkable 
credulity. They practically say: — " Let us enforce rates 
of profit, from which no discounts are to be made, and 
the public will not suffer. We will take care that they 
have their books at the same prices as now." So that 
publishers and retailers, taken together, are to have larger 
profits from the sales than at present, but these larger 
profits are to be at nobody's expense. A curious process 
this, by which one or other of these book-traders, or both 
of them, will gain more by the business than they did 
before, but the extra gain will come from nowhere ! 

The contention of Messrs. Hatchards is, however, 
easily disposed of by facts. A correspondent living in a 
provincial town writes to me : — 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 177 

" I was informed by a bookseller I deal with in — that 
he no longer allowed 2d. in the shilling, whereas up to 
six months ago to my knowledge, and possibly more re- 
cently, he has always done so.'' 

So, too, is it in London. A friend gives me his ex- 
perience as follows: — 

I first noticed it about two or three years since in con- 
nexion with Macmillan's publications — when he made 
the price of the Englisli Illustrated Magazine 6d. net. 
It had previously been sent to me on a yearly order from 
a bookseller for 4^d. a copy. 

Thus it is manifest that a rise to the old tariff of pro- 
fits is not to be looked for in the future; it already ex- 
ists. Clearly the abolition of the 2d. in the shilling 
brings the rates to what they were in '52, and clearly if 
what was to be had three years ago at 4^d. is now only 
to be had at 6d., it involves that the whole 25 per cent, 
discount which was allowed to the customer is now ap- 
propriated either by publisher or retailer or by the two 
together; this extra profit being in addition to the pro- 
fit previously made. The facts therefore directly contra- 
dict the statement of Messrs. Hatchards. 

That coercive regulations are already in full force 
there is also clear evidence. Through two channels has 
proof come to me that booksellers who have made dis- 
counts on books issued at " net " prices have their sup- 
plies stopped if they disobey the order not to do so 
again. One of those who have written to me names 
^^ the case of a City discount bookseller who has been 
allowing a small discount on ^ net ' books. The result 
has been that he is not allowed to have any more 
' net ' books from the corresponding publisher or from 



178 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLINa. 

any of tlie other publisliers who have been informed of 
his doings." 

So that the revived trade-union system of '52 is now, 
as then, adopting the usages of trade-unionism in general. 
There are spies on the disobedient retail booksellers, as 
among artisans there are pickets to watch the doings of 
non-unionists. And if there is not that physical blud- 
geoning by which artisan unionists seek to punish the 
non-unionists who take lower wages, there is the moral 
bludgeoning by which the bookseller-unionists endeavour 
to knock on the head the business of the non-unionists 
who sell at lower profits. 

But even were it the duty of the public to see that the 
trader in books — publisher, wholesale dealer, or retailer 
— is well paid, which it is not, there would be sufficiently 
clear proof that without any such coercive regulations 
as those now revived, each makes sufficiently good pro- 
fits. "Without emphasizing the cases of the long-esta- 
blished publishing houses, which are notoriously wealthy, 
there are cases of comparatively recent publishers who 
have made money in abundance. Unless my memory 
fails me, it is but a few years since Mr. Macmillan, an 
entirely self-made man, gave away a large sum for 
the building of a church. And within these few weeks 
there has been published the fact that a discount 
bookseller, recently deceased, left personalty exceeding 
£28,000. 

The following letter appeared in The Times for Octo- 
ber 30, 1894, under the title of '' The Book Trade." 

Your correspondent " A London Bookseller " misses 
the point of my comparison. The argument of Mr. 
Heinemannwas: — Booksellers who "live bv books shall be 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. l^Q 

able to live by tbem '' — in other words, they must make 
fair profits. They undersell one another and so cut down 
profits. To prevent this their rates of profit must be 
fixed. My reply was : — Grocers must live by grocery and 
they must make fair profits. They undersell one an- 
other and cut down profits. Therefore their rates of 
profit must be fixed. It matters not in the least whether 
fixing the rates of profit is easy in the one case and diffi- 
cult in the other — that is quite another issue. The argu- 
ment is — grocers can live though they undersell one an- 
other; why then cannot booksellers? 

But now let me point out to '^ A London Bookseller/' 
who proposes to give me a lesson in economics, that in 
respect of large parts, if not the larger parts, of their busi- 
nesses, grocers do not differ at all from booksellers; their 
systems are perfectly parallel. In these modern days 
every one who passes a grocer's shop observes within the 
window a barricade of boxes, tins, cases, jars, bottles, 
packets, &c.j filled with patent foods, chocolates, cocoas, 
pickles, sauces, preserved and potted meats, tinned fish, 
meat extracts, preserved fruits and jellies, soups, soap, 
&c. These are all in measured quantities at nominally- 
fixed prices, but are all sold at reduced prices. In the 
catalogue of the local stores at which I deal (not empha- 
sizing the eight pages of patent medicines, all having 
advertised prices that are fixed, but selling prices that 
are below them) there are over 60 different kinds of 
household articles in made-up quantities offered to cus- 
tomers at various discounts, from 8 per cent to nearly 
50 per cent. These percentages of discount offered by 
one dealer differ from those offered by another — the deal- 
ers compete in the amounts of their discounts. This is 
exactly what the booksellers do, and are supposed to ruin 



180 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

one anotlier by doing. My argument is that, since the 
grocers live by these commodities, though they compete 
in their discounts, so can the booksellers. Indeed, there 
needs no proof of this. What have they been doing for 
the last generation, during which there have been no 
" net '^ prices ? 

The facts above instanced furnish a reply to Mr. Mac- 
millan. He says the change to the " net " system has 
been made to abolish " this absurd business of putting 
up a price in order to knock it down again." But, as 
we see, this '^ absurd business " is carried on throughout 
an immense part of our retail trade. The system is one 
by which alone the maker and the distributor of made- 
up quantities remain free to settle their respective rates 
of profit. When this is understood there ceases to be any 
^^ absurdity '' in the contrast between the nominal and 
the real prices. Here is a tube of shaving cream which 
I use every day. It is marked on the outside Is. 6d. ; 
I buy it for lOd. The contrast may be absurd, but I tol- 
erate the absurdity and pocket the 8d. 

Mr. Macmillan's letter suggests one further remark. 
He implies that the change to ^' net " prices has been 
made to exclude the absurd contradiction between a 
nominal price and a real price. Is the exclusion of this 
the sole effect of the change? I fancy there is a much 
more important effect. The Englisli lUustrafed Maga- 
zine could be had a few years ago at 4:|^d., but cannot now 
be had under 6d. Something more has happened than 
the equalization of the nominal and real prices. The l^d. 
per copy which before remained in the pockets of the 
public is now transfeiTcd to the pockets of the trade — 
whether retailers, wholesalers, or publishers, or all three, 
matters not to the public. 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 181 

The complaint of Messrs. Whitaker and Williams is 
by implication dealt with above. Under the present dis- 
count system under-selling prevents them from making 
a " fair living profit/' and they therefore want profits 
fijxed. But why should Messrs. Whitaker and Williams 
have secured to them a ^' fair living profit '' any more 
than retailers of other classes? Mr. Whitaker does not 
feel responsible for the profits of his butcher. If he 
complains to Mr. Slaughter that he charges lid. per lb. 
for sirloins whereas Mr. Carcase will supply him with 
equally good sirloins for lOd. per lb., and if Mr. Slaugh- 
ter says that he " cannot pay his way honestly, with 
heavy rent, taxes, and assistants, &c.," unless he charges 
lid., Mr. Whitaker will reply that that is his affair, 
and that Mr. Carcase manages to pay his way though he 
charges only lOd. If, then, Mr. Whitaker does not con- 
cern himself about the sufiiciency of Mr. Slaughter's 
profits, why should other people concern themselves about 
the sufficiency of Mr. Whitaker's profits? 

One more of your correspondents, " B. W.," has to be 
noticed. He tacitly asks whether the publisher has not 
a perfect right to sell to the bookseller at what rate he 
pleases, or to refuse to sell at all. Unquestionably he 
has. Unquestionably publishers and booksellers are with- 
in their right in forming a combination to sell at fixed 
rates and to boycott any retailer who breaks the rules they 
make. Nobody may say them nay, so long as they re- 
frain from violence or intimidation; they may to this 
extent interfere with freedom of contract between the 
customer and the retail tradesman. But then in retalia- 
tion others are free to do things which may be greatly 
to their disadvantage. The public recognizing the grav- 
ity of the issue, may decline business with retailers who 



182 THE ''NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

have entered into the league. Or authors, perceiving 
that inevitably the forbidding of discounts and conse- 
quent raising of prices must limit the sales of their works, 
may prefer to negotiate with publishers who have adopted 
the " net " system. A more serious thing may happen. 
Readers may more extensively adopt the practice of 
ignoring the bookselling organization altogether and deal- 
ing directly with the publisher through the post. Already 
this practice is carried on to a certain extent, and if, as 
will possibly happen, the publisher allows to the purchaser 
who buys through the post the whole discount he now 
allows the trade, instead of allowing only part of it as 
he does now, the practice will become very extensive. 

The next letter appeared in The Times of Xovember 
6, 1894, under the same title as the last. 

Before making special replies to your correspondent 
" A Former Bookseller," I may set down some general 
replies. 

In the communication published on October 25 which 
opened the controversy, it was remarked that the argu- 
ments once before urged in defence of the bookseller's 
trade union regulations would be again urged. If on 
examination they proved invalid in 1852, why should 
they be valid in 1894? The nature of the trade is the 
same now as then. 

" The same now as then," did I say? Xot quite. 
The conditions have changed in favour of the bookseller. 
Postage is cheaper; freights cost less; the amount of 
business is greater. So that if the pleas then put for- 
ward were inadequate they are more inadequate now. 

My further general reply, which I make once again. 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OP BOOKSELLINa. 183 

is that for the last forty odd years booksellers have sus- 
tained the competition with one another which it is said 
they cannot sustain. I am not aware that there are more 
bankruptcies among booksellers than among other trad- 
ers; and the plain implication is that the evils of com- 
petition, which all traders have to bear, do not weigh 
upon them more than upon others. 

Passing to the special arguments used by " A Former 
Bookseller," let me first remark that he is keenly con- 
scious of those difficulties which stand in the bookseller's 
way, but appears to be unconscious that every kind of 
tradesman has other special difficulties which in like man- 
ner yield him reasons why he should be protected — rea- 
sons in some cases much stronger. Here is a fishmonger 
whose daily supply goes bad if not quickly sold, and who, 
if the morning's sale leaves a remnant, has to sell it late 
in the day at a great sacrifice ; and the butcher, in smaller 
degree, is subject to a like evil. Fruiterers, too, obtain, 
now from home, now from abroad, commodities many 
of which are perishable and entail heavy losses when not 
soon disposed of. Must fishmongers, butchers, fruiter- 
ers, &c.y therefore have fixed rates of profit that they may 
be able to bear these deductions from their returns? 

But such pleas are irrelevant. The sufficient answer 
is that in every trade the difficulties, drawbacks, &c., are 
similarly recognized and allowed for by each member of 
it and similarly restrain his lowering of prices or making 
of discounts. If bookseller A makes speculative purchas- 
es and occasionally loses, by dead stock, so do booksellers 
B, C, and D; and if A, because he has to cover these 
losses, cannot afford more than a certain discount, neither 
can, B, C, or D. Whatever the conditions of the trade, 
they operate on all, and restrain the underselling of all. 



184 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OP BOOKSELLING. 

and in some cases result in iinusiially liigli rates of pro- 
fits, as among druggists. The trader has to strike a 
balance between ruining himself on the one hand by 
conceding too much and losing business by high prices 
on the other hand. The balancing is ever going on no 
matter what the kind of business. 

With your permission, Sir, I will deal separately with 
the remainder of " A Former Bookseller's " argument. 
It raises questions of another kind, which I am very glad 
to have raised but cannot treat adequately now. 

Meanwhile, let me thank '^ HaK-Profits " for point- 
ing out that I have conceded too much. Unless with the 
assent of the author the publisher has no right to put any 
restraints on the distribution of his work. 'Not only is 
the author who publishes on commission or on the " half- 
profits " system liable to have his returns diminished, but 
even the one who has sold his copyright may be injured 
and ought to have a voice in the matter. There are other 
results than pecuniary ones to be considered. An author 
may be anxious to have his work more widely distributed, 
either for reputation's sake or for the truth's sake, or for 
both. 

The letter which here follows appeared on ISTovember 
21, 1894, under the title " The Bookselling Question," 
and is the last contributed by me to The Times on this 
matter. 

l^either your space nor my time will permit me to 
continue the controversy. Moreover, it is a bootless busi- 
ness to combat those who think that the public are bound 
to see that every man's business pays, and who think that 
everv town, thou2:h it mav be small and containino' few 
bookbuyers, must be provided with a good bookshop. 



THE "NET-PEICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 185 

"Was it not Sir William Harcourt wlio said — '^ We are all 
Socialists now '' ? It seems very much, like it. All I 
can further do is to indicate the heads of a remaining 
argument. 

Of the books published not more than one in 20 is put 
in stock, even by large retail booksellers. A much smaller 
proportion has been stated to me, but let us say one in 
20. That they may do a paying business with this 20th 
of the books published, retail booksellers say they should 
have their profits raised by prices from which no dis- 
counts are to be allowed — that is, the public should be 
made to pay on these books an extra amount. But, now, 
what about the 19 out of the 20 which are not stocked by 
booksellers? The aim is to make the " net '' prices uni- 
versal. These 19 unstocked books, therefore, will also 
have their prices raised, and, while the public is made to 
pay more for them than they would otherwise do, the 
consequent restriction of sales must diminish the profits 
going to the authors of them. 

Let us ask next what are the respective characters of 
the l-20th put in stock and of the 19-20ths not put in 
stock. The first class, speaking of them in the mass, 
are of the amusing kind — novels, sensational books, gos- 
siping biographies, narratives of adventures, and so forth, 
the books which are read by ladies who loll on their sofas 
instead of attending to their housekeeping and their 
children, books which minister to what may be called a 
mental dipsomania. The second class is no doubt made 
up largely of valueless books, but it also generally in- 
cludes some books of the highest value — books of authors 
who have not yet made their names and which are now 
and then of great importance, instructive books, books of 

science, philosophy, technical information, in short, grave 
13 



186 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OP BOOKSELLINa. 

books wliicli are most needed for the spread of cultTire. 
"What happens, then? Various books of most worth, 
which in any case will have small circulations and will 
often inflict losses, are to have their small circulations 
diminished by artificially-raised prices. So that, in short, 
the literature of amusement, which needs no encourage- 
ment, is to be encouraged, while the literature of instruc- 
tion, which especially needs encouragement, is to be dis- 
couraged. 

Here I will end with the remark that any one who 
observes the doings of retail traders in general will see 
that everywhere " pushing " is a cause of degradation, 
for the retailer is led by large discounts offered to push 
the inferior articles, and by slow steps the superior are 
often thrust out altogether. In a considerable degree 
this process goes on with retail booksellers. If, there- 
fore, as we are told, the " pushing " of books is made un- 
remunerative by the discount system, I simply reply, 
" So much the better." 

P. S. — A friend suggests the question. How much of 
the decay in the business of provincial booksellers is due 
to free libraries, which obtain their supplies of books 
wholesale from London and make one copy serve for 
many readers? 

Trom the pages of The Times the controversy was 
transferred to those of the AtTienoeum, and to various 
antagonists who had been publishing letters in that 
journal I made the following replies under the signature 
" An Author," of which the first was published on Xo- 
vember 24, 1894, under the title ^^ Publishers, Booksel- 
lers, and the Public." 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OP BOOKSELLING. 187 

The voices of " tlie trade/' which have been for these 
three weeks heard in the Athenceum, naturally form a 
harmonious chorus; and the chorus is the more harmo- 
nious because the voices come from members of a mu- 
tual admiration society. 

Mr. Krantz quotes with approval Mr. Heinemann, 
and Mr. Heinemann quotes with approval Mr. Krantz. 
Both German by origin, as we must suppose, they ap- 
plaud things German. We are to take our cue from the 
bureaucratic country, the socialistic country, the soldier- 
ridden country — a country where every man is hampered 
by police regulations in the carrying on of his life; and 
the coercive administration which, in harmony with the 
social type, Germany has established in the book trade, ■ 
is recommended as a coercive administration to be imi- 
tated here. To my thinking, anything described as a 
part of the German regime should be regarded, not as 
something to adopt, but as something to avoid. 

And now we have in addition the courtesies and ex- 
pressions of agreement uttered by ^^ A London Booksel- 
ler " to " A Publisher." The thing is extremely natural 
and means very little. If the representatives of an ar- 
tisan's trade-union, addressing the public, endorsed one 
another's arguments, the public would, I think, not con- 
sider the mutual endorsement of much value; and if 
these artisan trade-unionists assured the public that the 
higher wages they had exacted, by punishing those of 
their class who worked for less, were advantageous to the 
community, much more scepticism than belief would 
pretty certainly be shown. 

Let us look at the facts in the broad. Publishers, 
wholesale dealers, and booksellers constitute a piece of 
social machinery by which the products of writers are 



188 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

transferred to readers. The members of this, as of other 
pieces of social machinery, do the best they can for them- 
selves. They have to live by their work, and they make 
all the profits they are able. Kobody can blame them. 
But then let it be understood that they are, in all they 
do, pursuing their own interests, and do not let us be 
told that the increase of their gains will be a gain either 
to writers or to readers. Supposing the kind of distri- 
buting work to be the same, then extra pay for it is extra 
loss to those for whom it is done — writers or' readers, or 
both. With books, as with other things, the essential 
interests are those of producers and consumers, and it 
is for them to see that the agency which communicates 
between them does its work as efficiently and cheaply as 
possible. There is no reason why the public should 
pay more than need be for book-distribution than for 
the distribution of any other kind of commodity. 

But my chief purpose in writing this letter is to sug- 
gest to ^' the trade " that there may come from their ac- 
tion results not anticipated. It seems to me that very pos- 
sibly they will illustrate afresh the French proverb, " It 
is always the unexpected which happens." They calcu- 
late upon certain obviously beneficial results; but they 
do not consider whether there may not presently be 
caused results which defeat their aims. I have spoken 
of the trade as a piece of social machinery, and the figure 
of speech serves well to point my warning. With ma- 
chines of wood and iron we see universally that the old 
and less efficient are replaced by the new and more ef- 
ficient. The complicated machine which wastes force is 
thrown aside, and the simple machine which loses less 
in friction and superfluous movement is substituted for 
it. Inevitably it must be so with social machinery. The 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 189 

present system of book-distribution was indispensable 
in tlie days of coaches and Pickford's vans — the days 
when rates of postage were high and no means existed 
for making small payments at a distance. The cum- 
brous system then established and universally used was 
the only one available. But now that a simpler and 
cheaper and quicker one is available, it is time that the 
old one should be, in chief part, if not wholly, set aside. 
E'ow that we have parcel post and book post, money or- 
ders and postal orders, by the aid of which the reader 
may be brought into direct communication with the 
author's agent, it is absurd to go on employing the round- 
about communication. To suppose that the old arrange- 
ment can be permanently kept up, now that the new 
is ready to take its place, is about as rational as to sup- 
pose that coaching could be maintained after rail- 
ways had been established. When it comes to be clearly 
seen that by postal distribution, dispensing in most 
cases with the services of booksellers the prices of 
books may be reduced by at least one-third, and when 
the buyers of books benefit by this large economy, 
while makers of books benefit by the consequent 
more extensive sale of their works, the old and dear 
system must yield to the new and cheap one; and it 
seems not improbable that the effort now made to 
increase the costliness of the old system will serve as 
a stimulus to the development of the new. At any 
rate, I for one shall do all I can to further the system 
of postal distribution. 

The following second letter was published on De- 
cember 29. 

I have been in various ways prevented from taking 



190 THE ''NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OP BOOKSELLING. 

notice of the arguments of your correspondents on the 
bookselling question. 

Mr. Heinemann thinks to parry my remark about 
the bias in favour of things German, which character- 
izes the report of M. Krantz which he endorses, by quot- 
ing the corrected statement that the report was made by 
M. Soudier, ^' the well-known publisher and bookseller." 
So far from strengthening his case, he weakens it by this 
correction. To the bias of patriotism he adds the bias 
of trade interests and prejudices. Surely it is manifest 
that while a warp is given to every man by the influ- 
ences of his nationality, another warp is given by his daily 
pursuit of profit; and that the ideas which these pro- 
duce must distort his judgments. If a priest, brought 
up under Roman Catholic usages, and ever subject to 
Papal supremacy, were sent over here to report on the 
organization of the English Church, and if, by some 
Minister of Public Worship, his report were issued 
abroad as an authoritative document, we should, I think, 
smile at the folly of those who so regarded it. In the 
same manner, instead of accepting M. Soudier's report, 
endorsed by M. Krantz, as judicial, we may more fitly con- 
ment upon the absurdity of an officialism which uncriti- 
cally accepts conclusions that are, in the nature of things, 
almost certain to be one-sided. As an author I have very 
good reason for looking sceptically on a French publish- 
er's views of things. 

But now, criticisms aside, let me draw attention to a 
few undeniable facts. Last year there were published 
5,129 new works, besides 1,253 new editions. Of these 
5,000 works how many found their ways on to booksel- 
ler's counters? Shall we say 500? Possibly a large 
London bookseller might take as many, or even more, 



THE ''KET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 191 

in the course of the year. But what about the provincial 
booksellers? Do any of these in great towns place ten 
new works per week before their customers? And what 
of booksellers in second and third rate towns ? Will any 
one allege that they put in stock 400 yearly, or 300, or 
even 200? 'Naj, indeed, does not a competent authority, 
Mr. Stott, tell us that good books are rarely seen in the 
smaller bookseller's shops? But let us make the extreme 
assumption that one-tenth of the works issued are stocked 
by booksellers. What becomes of the remaining nine- 
tenths? Are they waste-paper? Doubtless a few do not 
sell at all: but bankrupt publishers would be more com- 
mon than they are if any considerable proportion of 
their books entailed loss. The recent great multiplica- 
tion of publishers implies that the business is tolerably 
prosperous; and if so, the mass of these unstocked nine- 
tenths of the books are sold at a profit. How then are 
they distributed to buyers? Evidently in single copies 
as they are ordered. And this is what every author must 
infer if he looks into matters. Of the first hundred 
copies or so ^^ subscribed,'' if his book promises fairly 
part may be exposed for sale by leading booksellers in 
London, Birmingham, Manchester, &c. But the re- 
mainder of the thousand, mostly taken in twenty-fives by 
the wholesale house, goes to meet the demands made by 
booksellers for copies as they are asked for. Take the 
kingdom over, and the bookseller does next to nothing 
save as a channel of communication. 

Mr. Stott has published in the Nineteenth Century 
an article entitled ^^ The Decay of Bookselling." It is a 
title curiously at variance with the facts. In 1890 there 
were published 4,414 new works, and in 1893 the num- 
ber was 5,129 — an increase of over 700 in three years. 



192 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

Unless publisliers liave been deliberately ruining tliem- 
selves, tbe great mass of these books must have been sold. 
How then can there have been a decay in hookselling^i 
Of course, the title of Mr. Stott's article should have 
been '' The Decay of booksellers " — a widely different 
thing. And now, thus correcting his title, what is the 
obvious corollary? The sale of books has gone on partly 
decreasing in number and partly dwindling. The ne- 
cessary implication is that the distribution of books has 
been following other channels: new channels are being 
formed and the old ones are being partially deserted. 
What the new channels are every one may see; and that 
the draft into them is adequate to account for the change, 
every one may infer. To a small extent we have the dis- 
tribution by post, though this is at present not large. 
We have the growth of the great libraries during the 
last fifty years — Mudie's, which began as a small shop 
in Southampton Eow; the other, at first separate but 
now amalgamated, circulating libraries; the London Li- 
brary, which during the same period has raised its an- 
nual circulation to 120,000; and lastly, the everywhere 
ramifying agency of Messrs. Smith & Son, having depots 
in all towns throughout the kingdom — depots which 
bring their library system within reach of every one, 
and afford in every place means of buying and ordering 
books. Surely the actions of these competitors suffice 
to account for the change which Mr. Stott deplores; es- 
pecially if there be added the effects of free libraries, now 
so common in large towns. 

Leaving out the interests of authors and public, it 
seems to me that, even from a bookseller's point of view, 
the " net " system is an extremely questionable remedy. 
Every trader knows that while raising the price increases 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 193 

the profit on each article, it is apt to diminish the num- 
ber of articles sold, and so may decrease returns instead 
of increasing them. Will it not be the same with books? 
Especially in face of the competing channels of dis- 
tribution which are now drafting off part of their busi- 
ness, will not booksellers, by raising prices, as the ^' net '' 
system must practically raise them, force still more of the 
current of distribution into these competing channels? 

One further letter on the subject, which runs as fol- 
lows, was contributed to another periodical — The Author 
for December, 1894. 

I am very glad to hear that the committee propose to 
ascertain the consensus of opinion among members of 
the Author's Society on the question of " net " prices. I 
presume that a general meeting will be held for the pur- 
pose. 

The very decided opinion which I myself entertain 
on the matter has two grounds. In the first place I hold 
that all such restrictive interferences with freedom of con- 
tract are inevitably mischievous in the end; and, in the 
second place, I hold that the particular restriction now 
sought for will be detrimental alike to authors and to 
the public. 

Those authors who have not carefully considered the 
question might, I think, not unfitly be guided by the 
decision which authors arrived at in 1852. If at that 
time, after inquiry and consultation, it was decided by 
a number of leading authors, literary and scientific, that 
the system of fixed prices from which no discounts v^re 
allowed was detrimental to them, the conclusion that 
such a system, if now re-established, would be detri- 



194 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

mental, is at any rate a highly probable one; for there 
have, so far as I know, taken place no changes which 
may be supposed to make the conclusion held valid in 
the one case invalid in the other. 

But it need not take long to form an independent 
judgment. There is often an irrational cry against mid- 
dle-men, though middle-men are, in the majority of cases, 
very useful persons. But in all cases middlemen must 
be kept in order. They, of course, pursue their own in- 
terests, and, if allowed, will satisfy those interests at the 
expense of those they serve. This is obviously the case 
with the middlemen who constitute the various classes of 
the book trade as with all others. On the face of it, there- 
fore, any proposal of change made by them must be 
looked upon with great suspicion. 

That a disadvantage is threatened in the present case 
will at once be seen when the essentials are divested of 
all details. It is contended that retail booksellers must 
have greater profits assured to them. These greater pro- 
fits must be at the cost of some among the several parties 
concerned. At whose cost then? Those concerned are 
the writers, the readers, and the several classes of traders 
who come between them. Of these classes of traders one 
is to have greater gains. Will these greater gains come 
from the other classes of traders? Will the publishers, 
for instance, sacrifice part of their profits for the benefit 
of retailers? Certainly not. They can practically make 
their own terms, and will sacrifice nothing, if they do 
not even take a share of the extra gains. "Will the sa- 
crifice be made by the wholesale bookseller? It is un- 
likely; for he, too, has power in his hands to make his 
own bargains, and can take care he does not lose by the 
change. There remain then the public and the authors, 



THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 195 

one or both of whom must suffer a loss that the retailers 
maj gain. That the public will suffer a loss is clear, if 
the discounts now made from advertised prices are denied 
to them; for it is absurd to suppose that advertised prices 
will be lowered to balance the absence of discounts. If 
that were done publishers would gain nothing. Clearly, 
then, the loss would be borne directly by the public. But 
eventually a loss would also be borne by the authors. It 
is impossible that the prices of books can be raised to 
buyers without to some extent restricting the sales. 
^' This book is advertised at 12s.," says the buyer to the 
retailer. ''That is too much; I must go without it." 
" But," says the retailer, '' you can have it for 9s." 
'' For 9s., you say. I can afford 9s. You may let me 
have it." Conversations of this kind, or thoughts cor- 
responding to such conversations, must be of continual oc- 
currence. Obviously, therefore, if discounts are given 
many more copies of a book are sold than would be sold 
in the absence of discounts, and of course diminution in 
the number of copies sold is diminution of the author's 
profit, though the rate of profit remains the same. 

Alike, then, on our own behalf and on behalf of the 
public, we are, I think, bound to oppose the attempt to 
establish '' net " prices. 

Only three or four brief letters taking the same side 
were published: all others were letters from my antago- 
nists, with whom I had to carry on the controversy al- 
most single-handed. Since the date of the last letter the 
conflict has been proceeding with advantage to the trade- 
unionist party. The " net " system of publication has 
been spreading; and now the retailer who makes dis- 



196 THE "NET-PRICE" SYSTEM OF BOOKSELLING. 

counts from books published at " net '' prices, or who 
gives more tban twopence in the shilHng discount on 
other books, is to be boycotted. 

Probably we shall return to something like the con- 
dition of things which was abolished in 1852. Univer- 
sally there is going on a return to medievalism in the 
forms of industrial government — a re-establishment of 
gild-regulations. In this case, as in other cases, it will be 
seen that men who are without clear ideas of freedom, 
and in whom the sentiment of freedom is weak, will 
lose what freedom they had gained. The regime of con- 
tract which recent times have seen gradually established, 
is giving way before the revived regime of status — vol- 
untary cooperation is being gradually replaced by com- 
pulsory cooperation. In matters of trade each individual 
has decreasing power to do what he likes and increasing 
obligation to do what others like. Submitting as he does 
to the dictation of his fellows, he is more and more owned 
by them and less and less owned by himself. 



APPENDICES. 



A SOLUTION OF THE WATER QUESTION. 

To nearly all my readers I am known simply as a writer of 
books : only a few knowing that tlie early part of my life was 
passed as a civil engineer. Hence to tlie great majority the 
inclusion, among the foregoing fragments, of one dealing with 
an engineering question would have seemed very anomalous ; 
and for this reason I have thought it best to include it in an 
appendix, containing fragments not likely to appeal to those 
who may feel some interest in the rest. It was written in 
1851, when but five years had elapsed since engineering 
matters mainly occupied my thoughts, and when they still 
continued occasionally to do this. Its date was December 20, 
1851, and it was published in the Economist newspaper when 
I was engaged on that journal. Some of the difficulties stand- 
ing in the way of the scheme at that time have since disap- 
peared. 

Of the many possible modes of supplying London with 
water, there is one which has not yet been proposed. It is 
extremely simple and economical ; and, I think, offers the 
readiest escape from the perplexities with which the matter 
is at present surrounded. 

A scheme is already before the public for providing the 
metropolis with water from Henley-on-Thames. This water, 
in which a white pebble is visible at the depth of five or six 
feet, will, I presume, be held unobjectionable in quality, and 
that it is abundant in quantity needs no proof. Could it then 
be brought to London without the vast expense of the pro- 

199 



200 A SOLUTION OF THE WATER QUESTION. 

posed aqueducts, and could it be distributed without a new 
system of pipes, every important desideratum would be ful- 
filled. Let us consider whether this is not possible. Let us 
inquire what causes prevent the Thames at London from being 
as pure as the Thames at Henley, and whether these causes 
are not removable. 

The Thames is vitiated — firstly, by the sewage of the 
numerous small towns on its banks lying between Henley and 
London; secondly, by the sewage of London itself; and 
thirdly, by the stirring up of the mud consequent upon the 
flux and reflux of the tide. 

To intercept the sewage of these intermediate towns would 
be a matter of no difficulty. Having before us the example of 
Edinburgh, and knowing what the Metropolitan Sewage-Ma- 
nure Company are daily doing, it is obvious, that did there 
exist a sufiicient motive, it would be easy to use up the sewer- 
water of each of these places in irrigating the surrounding 
districts. 

As for the sewage of the metropolis, it may practically be 
left out of the question, seeing that, on carrying into execu- 
tion the adopted drainage scheme, this sewage will be de- 
livered so far down the Thames as not to contaminate the 
water of London. 

The third cause of impurity — the flux and reflux of the tide 
— is the only one that remains; and we now come to the 
question — May not this be stopped ? I think there can be little 
doubt that it may. By throwing across the Thames near Lon- 
don (say at Chelsea) a weir, similar to, but much larger than, 
those which repeatedly occur, higher up the river, and by ac- 
companying this weir with one, two, or more locks to admit 
of the passage of the small steamboats and barges that ply 
above Chelsea, the desideratum might be achieved without 
great cost, and without entailing any appreciable inconveni- 
ence. It is true that damming up a tidal water-way is by no 
means so easy a matter as damming up an ordinary river- 
channel. But, whilst quite conscious of the difiiculties to be 
met, I do not think it rash to assume that modern engineering 



A SOLUTION OF THE WATER QUESTION. 201 

skill would be competent to meet them ; especially since hear- 
ing from a gentleman now engaged in building bridges over 
two tidal rivers, that such a dam is practicable. 

Taking for granted, however, its practicability, let us con- 
sider what the results would be. The sewage of Reading, 
Maidenhead, Windsor, &c., having been blocked out; the 
sewage of London having been provided with a discharge 
some ten miles below the dam ; and the dam having been 
closed, it is manifest that the whole of the Thames above the 
dam would presently become clear. That mass of muddy fluid 
which now daily flows backwards and forwards as high as 
Kew would gradually escape over the weir, and its place 
would be taken by the water from the upper Thames ; and, as 
this would have received no contamination in its progress, it 
would, for anything that appears to the contrary, be as pure at 
Chelsea as at Henley. Possibly it will be objected that the de- 
posits of mud which constitute the bed of the Thames above 
London would still destroy the clearness of the water. This, 
however, is an error. The Thames at Henley and above runs 
over a bottom as muddy as that which it runs over here ; yet 
is not dirtied by it, simply because from the constant recur- 
rence of dams the stream is slow ; and as under the proposed 
arrangement the water-way at Chelsea would, in proportion 
to the water passing through it, be far greater than at Henley, 
the current would be still slower than there, and the disturb- 
ance of the bottom even less. Should it be urged that the mud 
would be stirred up by the passag'e of river-craft and especially 
steamboats, it is replied that w^ith a constant depth of some 
twenty feet of water, vessels of such small draught as those 
plying above Chelsea would produce no such effect. 

Turning now to the advantages offered by this project, it is 
obvious that all the Water Companies now drawing their sup- 
plies from the Thames — companies against whom the loudest 
and most justifiable complaints are made — would, under the 
proposed arrangement, be presented with an abundant source 
of pure water. The works and pipes of some of them would 
serve as heretofore without alteration ; and, by an underground 
14 



202 A SOLUTION OF THE WATER QUESTION. 

cast-iron conduit, each of the other works might readily be 
connected with the water above the dam at but moderate ex- 
pense. And should the quantity they can jointly supply be 
ultimately found insuflBcient, their distributing organisations 
could be enlarged or additional ones formed with far less out- 
lay than would be needed to bring and distribute water from 
one of the proposed new sources. 

As above implied, changes made since 1851 have rendered 
the project much more practicable than it then seemed : sewage 
has been stopped out. An incidental benefit not named may 
be here added. Were the tidal stream arrested at Chelsea — 
were there none of that rush now entailed by the filling and 
emptying of the river channel from Chelsea to Richmond and 
above, the movement of the water through London, and espe- 
cially above London Bridge, would become relatively slow. To 
fill the space between London Bridge and Chelsea in the 
course of six hours, would require a current so gentle that it 
would not stir up the mud. And this space, becoming after a 
few months filled exclusively by the clear water of the upper 
Thames discharged over the Chelsea weir, would be rendered 
practically pure. This advantage would be still more effect- 
ually achieved, however, were there carried out the more am- 
bitious scheme which the letter went on to propose, and 
which was as follows : — 

There is an extension of this scheme which seems to me 
well worth discussing. It would achieve several important 
desiderata, and though open to what seems at first sio^ht a seri- 
ous and even fatal objection, will, I think, on calm considera- 
tion, be found feasible. The plan I refer to is — damming up 
the river below London instead of above. By throwing across 
the Thames, say at Greenwich, a weir such as that mentioned 
.above, and by accompanying this weir with a group of locks. 



A SOLUTION OF THE WATER QUESTION, 203 

placed side by side, sufficiently numerous to admit of the simul- 
taneous passage of many vessels, several additional advantages 
would be secured without great cost and without entailing any- 
serious interruption of traffic. 

1. The whole of the Thames between London Bridge and 
Greenwich would be turned into a vast dock, always full up 
to the level of spring tides. Vessels entering at all times 
might immediately be laid alongside the wharfs or taken into 
the existing docks without having to wait, as they frequently 
now do, for more water. Affording constantly throughout its 
whole width a sufficient depth for ships of ordinary draught, 
the river channel would practically be rendered broader, and 
its centre, being less occupied, w^ould be more available for the 
general traffic than at present. 

2. The shelving banks of mud, which are now, during the 
greater part of every day, left more or less bare, and which, 
from exposure to the sun and air, are constantly sending up 
noxious exhalations along the whole course of the river both 
above and below bridge, would be permanently covered ; the 
decomposition now going on would be stopped, or nearly so ; 
and an increase of salubrity would result. 

3. A great improvement to the appearance of the metropo- 
lis would be a further consequence. In place of the disgust- 
ing current now ever running backwards and forwards through 
a dirty half-empty channel, which, instead of being an orna- 
ment to London, is an eyesore, we should have a clear, pure 
lake always full. 

4. The Thames bridges would no longer be endangered. 
Already the foundations of two of them have been under- 
mined by the rapid current, and I have heard the opinion ex- 
pressed by an engineer that Waterloo Bridge will ultimately 
share the fate of the Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges 
should its piers continue subject to the same scouring action 
of the tide. Were the proposed scheme carried out, no such 
catastrophe need be feared. 

Against these advantages the only obvious set-off is the 
hindrance that would occasionally occur in the entrance and 



204 A SOLUTION OF THE WATER QUESTION. 

exit of shipping. This will be found, on examination, a less 
formidable diflSculty than it looks. It must be remembered 
that a great number of the ships entering the Thames, and 
those, too, ships of the largest class, go into the East and 
West India Docks. Were the dam placed about Greenwich as 
proposed, these ships would be uninterfered with. On those 
vessels passing up to lie in the Pool, or to enter the London, 
St. Katharine's, or Commercial Docks, and on those passing 
down from these places, the going through the locks would 
entail a certain delay. By having the locks njimerous, how- 
ever, (and the shore of the Isle of Dogs might be trenched 
upon to make room for ten or a dozen if need be,) this delay 
would not, at ordinary times, exceed the five or ten minutes 
required for transfer from one level to the other. And even 
when many vessels, detained by adverse winds, were coming 
up the river in a crowd, ten or a dozen locks would dispose 
of those proceeding into the Pool with tolerable celerity. It 
should be borne in mind too, that even now vessels must be 
delayed on reaching the Pool ; for they cannot sail through the 
Pool in a fleet J nor all get into the docks at once, nor be unloaded 
together. Evidently, therefore, were they passed through the 
locks as rapidly as they could be disposed of on reaching the 
Pool, no real hindrance would occur. 

Should it, however, still be thought that some loss of time 
would occasionally be inevitable ; and should it even be con- 
sidered that the facilities obtained by turning the Thames into 
a dock would not compensate the shipping interest for this ; it 
is nevertheless argued, that offering as it does a still more satis- 
factory and economical solution of the water- question — promis- 
ing to greatly increase the salubrity and beauty of London — 
and holding out a guarantee of safety for the Thames bridges, 
the project presents advantages which far more than counter- 
balance any possible mercantile inconvenience. 

The Thames through London would not only become a 
" clear, pure lake always full " : it would become something 
more. Above London Bridge such parts of its shores as were 



I 



BOAED OF TEADE AKD EAILWAY STATION BOAEDS. 205 

not used for wharves might readily be made the shores of an 
ornamental water ; and its calm bright surface would become 
one on which the pleasures of boating might be everywhere 
enjoyed. Attached to the downward sides of the piers of 
various bridges would soon be established floating baths like 
those on the Seine at Paris, but containing swimming baths 
as well as hot baths; and to other piers floating cafes and 
restaurants might be attached, which would be extensively 
patronized during the fine months of the year. And then in 
winter, the surface being calm and therefore quickly frozen, 
would furnish an immense area for skaters : below Chelsea 
parts of it not disturbed by steamboats being thus available 
and above Chelsea the whole of it being thus available. In 
short, besides its resulting increase of salubrity, the Thames 
would be made a centre of attraction instead of the contrary. 



THE BOAKD OF TEADE AND EAILWAY STATION 
BOAEDS. 

The following fragment, like the preceding one, is so in- 
congruous in subject-matter with those forming the body of 
the volume that it has seemed best to relegate it to an append- 
ix. The inclusion even here of a letter dealing with a matter 
so seemingly trivial will be thought by many ill-judged. Per- 
haps they will think otherwise when they remember that daily 
throughout the kingdom many thousands of persons travelling 
on lines they are strangers to, are often greatly inconvenienced 
— hurried, perturbed, delayed — by the irrational usages at 
present in force ; and that not only their interests but the in- 
terests of the companies dictate some such change as that 



206 BOARD OF TRADE AND RAILWAY STATION BOARDS. 

indicated. The letter appeared in The Times for December 
2, 1895. 

In your issue of Thursday were named several unsatisfac- 
tory ways of diminishing the confusion between station name- 
boards and the surrounding advertisements. This confusion 
may be effectually removed in a way at once simple and 
obvious. 

Advertisers should be allowed to use all colours save one, 
and that one, reserved for station name-boards, should be the 
most conspicuous colour — red. Red is the proper colour, not 
only as being the most conspicuous, but as being the colour 
of lamps and flags used as signals for stopping ; and since a 
station is a stopping place the board bearing its name should 
be red. 

Further, that it may have the greatest conspicuousness, 
this board, instead of bearing red letters on a white ground, 
should bear white letters on a red ground, the advantage 
being that the much greater area of red presented would 
catch the eye of the traveller more readily and from a greater 
distance. 

If railway companies could agree to adopt universally such 
a mode of exhibiting station names an additional advantage 
would be gained. As things now are the traveller approaching 
a station does not know the general aspect of the thing he 
wants to find ; but if he had a foreknowledge of its general 
aspect as a large mass of red this foreknowledge would enable 
him to identify the name-board even before he came within 
reading distance. 

Were such a plan adopted name-boards of special shapes, 
and spaces round name-boards, would be needless. 

I am told that on one or two of the metropolitan lines the 
suggestion has been carried out — in part if not completely. 



AMEEICAN PUBLISHERS. 207 



AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. 

Though not all of them impersonal in form, the preceding 
fragments are impersonal in substance. The following repro- 
duced letter, being wholly personal, I could not fitly place with 
the rest. Yet that my deceased friend should not have a per- 
manent recognition of indebtedness to him from me and from 
many other English authors, has seemed unjust. To meet the 
difficulty I have decided to place the letter here. It appeared 
in The Times for September 21, 1895. 

In the article on " Literature in America," which appears 
in your issue to-day, accounts are given of the chief publishing 
houses in New York and elsewhere. Allow me to make a small 
but important addition to the account given of the house of 
Messrs. D. Appleton and Co. In it occurs the sentence : — 

" English men of science owe a debt of gratitude to the 
firm who were the first to introduce authorized editions of the 
works of Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley, and Darwin to 
the American public, and who also originated the well-known 
international scientific series." 

While recognizing the indebtedness of English men of sci- 
ence to the house of Messrs. Appleton, justice requires me to 
say that the " debt of gratitude " is in chief measure owed to 
my late friend Professor E. L. Youmans. The soundness of 
his judgment having been proved to them by experience, the 
Messrs. Appleton adopted to ^ large extent the suggestions 
made by him respecting English works to be republished. It 
was at his instigation that they undertook the publication of 
my works, the works of Tyndall, Huxley, and Darwin, and the 
works of various other scientific men. He was deeply desirous 



208 AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. 

of obtaining for English authors a due share of the profits 
resulting from the sales of their books in America, and his 
desire met with a proper response from the Messrs. Appleton. 
How far the remunerative terms given to English authors 
must be ascribed to his negotiations and how far to the equit- 
able feeling of Messrs. Appleton, it is of course impossible to 
say ; but my own correspondence with him enables me to 
testify that his unceasing effort was to maintain authors' in- 
terests. For a period of 30 years, during which English works 
had no copyright in America, arrangements initiated about 
1860 gave to English authors who published with the Messrs. 
Appleton profits comparable to, if not identical with, those of 
American authors. To the Messrs. Appleton great credit must 
be accorded for having loyally carried out these arrangements 
in my own case and in the cases of various of my friends, and 
I believe, in all other cases ; but I cannot permit the part taken 
by Professor Youmans in the matter to be ignored. 

To him, more than to any other American, the gratitude 
of English authors is due. 

Let me also correct the statement of your correspondent 
respecting the International Scientific series. This was not 
" originated " by the Messrs. Appleton, but by Professor You- 
mans. Further, he was the originator of the Popular Science 
Monthly, for many years edited by him and now edited by his 
younger brother. 

As it might be inferred from the wording of this letter that the 
payment of copyright to foreign authors began with the works men- 
tioned therein, it is proper to make the statement that the right of 
such authors had already been recognised by that house, which had 
been paying royalties on its republications of foreign works for several 
years previous to the making of any formal arrangement. 



LIST OF OTHER FRAGMENTS. 209 



LIST OF OTHER FRAGMENTS. 

As there not unfrequently arise doubts and disputes re- 
specting an author's minor productions, I have thought it well 
to give here a list of further letters and essays from time to 
time published. I have omitted them from the body of the 
volume, in some cases because of their comparative unimpor- 
tance, and in other cases because I did not wish to perpetuate 
the contained personalities. 

1862, Nov. 8 & 22. Two letters in the Athenceum entitled 
" Theological Criticism," being replies to Dr. Martineau. 

1882, June. " Prof. Goldwin Smith as a Critic." Contem- 
porary Review. 

1884, April 5. " Mental Evolution in Animals." Athenceum. 

1884, Sept. 9. "Mr. Herbert Spencer and the Comtists." 
The Times. 

1884, Sept. 15. "Mr. H. Spencer and Comte." Ditto. 

1884, July. "Retrogressive Religion." Nineteenth Century. 

1884, Nov. "Last Words about Agnosticism." Ditto. 

1889, Nov. 7 & 15. Letters to The Times on the Land 
Question. 

1890, Febr. 7. Letter to the Daily Telegraph entitled 
" Reasoned Savagery so-called." 

1894, Aug. — Sept. Letters to the Daily Chronicle on the 
Land Question. 

1895, June. " Mr. Balfour's Dialectics." Fortnightly Review. 

This list is not exhaustive. There are several letters the 
dates of which have not been ascertained; but they are of 
little significance. 

THE END. 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 



MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF HERBERT SPENCER. 

^OCIAL STATICS. New and revised edition, in- 
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political tendencies heretofore published separately. i2mo. 
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Contents. — Happiness as an Immediate Aim. — Unguided Expediency. — The 
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— Greatest Happiness must be sought indirectly. — Derivation of a First Principle. — 
Secondary Derivation of a First Principle. — First Principle.— Application of the First 
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" Mr. Spencer has thoroughly studied the issues which are behind the social and 
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or in Congress, but the principles of all modem government, which are slowly chang- 
ing in response to the broader industrial and general development of human experience. 
One will obtain no suggestions out of this book for guiding a political party or carrying 
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PDUCATION : Intellectual, Moral, and Physical 

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Contents: What Knowledge is of most Worth ?— Intellectual Education.— Moral 
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Manners and Fashion. 
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Prison-Ethics. 
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Absolute Political Ethics. 
Over-Legislation . 
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